Jerry Springer: The Opera
?I laughed so hard I accidentally broke wind!? ? A writer for the Toronto Star who probably has trouble tying his shoes, on Jerry Springer: The Opera
Perhaps my inability to laugh at any one of the many ?jokes? hurled from Jerry Springer: The Opera is a symbol not of how uptight and conservative I am, but of how irreversibly jaded I?ve become. Someone says ?Jerry Springer,? and what do you think of? Racism, fetishism, blasphemy, rednecks, and titty tassels no doubt. Jerry Springer: The Opera offers most of these things, and takes it a step further by putting it to music. Not operatic music, to my supreme dismay. The type of music you?d expect from Rent, or Footloose, which leads me to believe that Jerry Springer: The Musical would?ve been a better title. But why debate misnomers when there is a mountain of garbage to trudge through?
When analyzing Jerry Springer, the absence of a plot is actually a point in its favour, which is an immediate sign that you have to judge the show by a different set of standards. Actually, you have to reverse almost every single expectation of what is deemed good in order for Jerry Springer: The Opera to qualify for anything remarkable. You don?t demand a plot when you watch Jerry Springer, so the fact that there is a moral to the proceedings outside of the trademark ?final thought? strikes me as rather perplexing. The same can be said for the tight scripting and staging; these are things you never expect from Springer, and their presence is not welcome.
So the perpetually disaffected Jerry Springer is emceeing yet another hillbilly circus. Cheating lovers, transsexuals, men in diaper, etc. he is pretty much just going through the motions with a typical wry disposition. But curiously, in between commercial breaks a spiteful little valkyrie pops up and tries to appeal to Jerry?s better nature for absolutely no reason in particular, except maybe to alert the part of the audience that didn?t read the pre-show programme that there is something transcendental waiting in the shadows. At the end of the first half, diaper man shoots Jerry in the chest because apparently he had difficulty aiming for the glittering Ku Klux Klan members standing two feet to the left of Jerry. Curtain drops to signify intermission, and Jerry goes to hell where all the delightful blasphemy, curiously absent up until this point, makes an appearance. Turns out Satan wants Springer to mediate a special episode of biblical proportions in his fiery abode.
I?m willing to concede to the possibility that it might have been an off night for the cast, but Jerry Springer: The Opera feels fundamentally flawed in the core design of the performance. What makes an episode of Jerry Springer an amusing guilty pleasure is not present here, and this is largely due to the limitations of the theatrical medium. While the scenarios on the television show are certainly preconceived, the execution is much more visceral and immediate. Punches are thrown, clothes are torn, accidental nudity is a common phenomenon, and the cameraman (and your perspective by extension) is caught in the midst of it. In a theatre, you are resigned to a seat that is too far away from the action to be involving. This jarring distance does not make for the intended guttural reaction.
Springer mediates a showdown between Jesus and the devil
Additionally, exhausting attempts at operatic singing serves to exacerbate and not alleviate the glaring flaws in the production, if not because it makes the audience second guess the dialogue than because coarse language is not meant to be sung. Fuck, shit, cock, and other similar words are repeatedly attempted to be sung in lengthened duration while changing pitch. The curse word is a word that is linguistically brief and is designed to be short, punchy and abrasive, not held in high squeals for agonizing seconds. Combined with many a failed harmony and a mismatched pit band, it becomes a complete aural disaster.
?Controversial? seems to be a hot word for describing the show, but there?s hardly anything controversial about it. It?s crude and laden with foul language, but it doesn?t go deeper than that. To be controversial would imply that there is an idea to be challenged or a question to be posed. There is nothing of that sort, except for a single solitary line Jerry speaks at the beginning of the second act: ?A broadcaster of lesser experience might feel somewhat responsible.? Coincidentally, this line marked the only time I cracked a bit of a smile. Everything else is common offense, and that?s not a very hard aspiration to meet. ?I HATE NIGGERS? is an offense, or possibly a scene from a Die Hard movie, but it?s not a controversy.
I really wanted to like Jerry Springer: The Opera, but it?s just too grating and too obnoxious to be of any real entertainment.
*The answers are *pencils* and *spleen.* Three points to Triangle!
