What a coincidence: the new Jerry Springer is named David Soul. And award-winning (2004 Olivier for Best Actor) David Bedella, fresh from time out for filming, re-sizzles as Jerry's Warm-Up Man, and later Satan. Both look and act their risky parts perfectly in this raucous send-up of one "Jerry Springer moment" (on TV) after another (finally in hell, which is really not much different).
In scatological symmetry, onstage choruses in faddish dress and hair non-styles sing obscenities while MC and crew work them up yet - and this applies equally to the audience - rule out hurling things, heckling, throwing up, fighting. After Jerry finally descends central stairs in Follies manner, it's on to Guests With Guilty Secrets. Unsurprisingly, they're mostly sexual or related to bodily functions and psychological malfunctions. Brilliant music and lyrics and, at the same time, unpleasant characters, situations, language that mirror the real Springer TV show elicit memorably over-the-top performances.
When the second half of The Opera moves to hell, David Bedella, with gleaming eyes, seems in his element as a red-suited, suave Satan, just as Leon Craig's flabby and fetish-filled Montel slips unexpectedly comfortably into the swaddling clothes of grown-up Jesus. A pieta brings the blasphemy further. No wonder even Benjamin Lake's still fatter God sings, "It ain't easy being big, being Me."
Perhaps because Jerry Springer's satire is so broad, the show feels more funny than nasty. Or maybe, like Springer fans who merely "eat, excrete, and watch TV," audiences of The Opera constitute a comparable if more sophisticated cult. As for Jerry, after he is shot, he tries to convince us that he doesn't create or solve problems: "I just televise them."
So what does The Opera mean? Is it merely destructive satire or is there a corrective center? Is it really a salacious money-making come-on? Could it be that it simply offers outrageous fun lavishly staged and cleverly set to music? Should anyone care?
