The Gospel at Colonus

Productions

The Gospel at Colonus premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's New Wave Festival in November to December 1983.

The following year it received a production at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. running from Nov 23, 1984 – Dec 30, 1984

The musical ran at the American Music Theater Festival, Philadelphia, in September 1985.

The Gospel at Colonus opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on March 11, 1988 in previews, officially on March 14, 1988, and closed on May 15, 1988 after 61 performances and 15 previews. Directed by Lee Breuer, the cast featured Morgan Freeman (Messenger), Sam Butler, Jr. (The Singer), Clarence Fountain and the Five Blind Boys of Alabama (Oedipus) and the Institutional Radio Choir of Brooklyn. Breuer was nominated for the 1988 Tony Award for his book.

The musical was a finalist for the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The musical won the 1984 Obie Award as Best Musical.

The musical was produced at the Apollo Theater, New York City, in October 2004, featuring Charles S. Dutton as the Preacher, the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Legendary Soul Stirrers.

The production at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, Los Angeles, by the Ebony Repertory Theatre was nominated for the 2015 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards for theatrical excellence.

Overview

Breuer and Telson handed the storytelling duties to a black Pentecostal preacher and the choir of his church, who in turn enacted the story of Oedipus's torment and redemption as a modern parable. They employed the unusual device of casting The Blind Boys of Alabama to collectively portray Oedipus as well as the Institutional Radio Choir in Brooklyn and Chancel Choir of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Other casting innovations in the performance include multiple actors in single roles, such as when The Messenger is called upon to assume the role of Oedipus in tandem with the singer cast when the role calls for stage motion that would be difficult for the blind singer to negotiate alone, the multiplicity of Oedipus's daughters and one son when the children of Oedipus appear collectively (with Jevetta Steele as Ismene, her sister Jearlyn Steele doubling for actress Isabell O'Connor as Antigone, and brothers J.D. and Fred Steele standing in as Polynices and Eteocles, with actor Kevin Davis doubling as Polynices), and, indeed, with different portions of the cast, singly and in groups, assuming the duties of the traditional Greek chorus.

The New York Times's Mel Gussow has expressed the view that the result was the translation of the Greek myth into a Christian parable. In his review of the BAM production, Gussow noted: "It is surprising how organically "Oedipus" can fit within the framework of a gospel musical... the evening has the shape of a church service." Others observed that the name Jesus is not mentioned and is irrelevant to the story.

While the traditions of Greek theater as religious ritual are unfamiliar to modern audiences, Gospel at Colonus reaffirms those possibilities by its use of call-and-response and ecstatic, sung re-enactment of a culturally important story.

Television and film

In 1985 PBS televised the original Brooklyn Academy of Music production, as presented by the American Music Theater Festival at the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia, as part of the Great Performances series. The performers included Morgan Freeman as The Messenger, Carl Lumbly as Theseus, Jevetta Steele as Ismene, and Robert Earl Jones as Creon. In the 1985 incarnation, The Soul Stirrers (credited collectively) and the Institutional Radio Choir assume roles as citizens of Colonus.

The first-act song "How Shall I See You Through My Tears?" was used as the opening number of the 2003 film, Camp.

Musical numbers