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Theatre Reviews
Jerry Springer The Opera

DETAILS
Venue: Cambridge Theatre Earlham Street Seven Dials London WC2H 9HU Tube: Leicester Square Performances: Mon – Sat in rep, 7.45pm £12-£38 Duration: 2 hours, 10 mins Price: £12-£38	To order tickets: Cambridge Theatre Click here to order tickets for showings at The Cambridge Theatre (showing from 14th October 2003 until 27th March 2004)

Reviews:
09/04 (Cambridge Theatre, new cast)
04/03 (National Theatre, original cast)

09/04 (Cambridge Theatre, new cast)

America's Springer Moment
With Jerry headed for Broadway in fall of 2005, the question is: can America handle their Jerry Springer Moment?

Megan M. Retka offers some insight....

I've been asked to share my 'American' thoughts on the very crass and excitingly uncouth Jerry Springer, which is currently tickling London crowds' fancy and is soon to storm the US, in Spring 2005. What I can't imagine, in my wealth of American cultural know-how and my experience living in Britain, is how anyone - excluding the extremely religious and fervently PC - couldn't find it hilarious. Then
again, there's a reason I'm not in America right now.

Having resided in Mid-Missouri's Little Dixie for four years, I've had much experience in Wal-Mart, mullets, and Jerry Springer. I've seen my share of bitch-fights and McDonalds-reared children, and I know first hand that people really do believe Fox News.

This is something to think about when bringing a musical that has a lead song entitled Chick with a Dick to the confines of American soil. Remember: America is known as a nation of 'freedom lovers,' and that means Christian, white, straight men, preferably with money or stock in Halliburton.

Some might question the Springer lifestyle in terms of all things that are not straight, white, rich and male, but Jerry Springer, in all its glory, is a celebration of all things American. Yes, we have mullets that aren't clippings from a 'W' fashion shoot! Yes, we eat ungodly amounts of fast food! Yes, we spend hours watching television, every day! Yes, we aren't all white, straight, rich and male!

The show is set to run a spring preview in possibly the perfect setting for its upbringing - San Francisco - and move on to Broadway in the autumn, and its reception by the public is questionable, although the show has collected numerous awards and countless acclaim from reviewers in the US and Britain alike. My insight is that America is more diverse and open-minded than British theatre presumes, and Jerry will receive a warm welcome, aside from a few small protests.

Ultimately and theatrically, Jerry Springer tucks faux-pas language into opera, and weaves brilliant song-writing with a passionately performed production - one that will either offend you beyond  reason or send you into stitches of laughter. It is a show that doesn't allow children - for obvious reasons - and is better seen with an open mind and after a drink or two.

Especially when the tap-dancing KKK start-up.

If you're visiting Britain and up for a kitschy portrayal of your own kind, then go. A good rule of thumb, however: if you turn off Jerry Springer the moment it comes on, mumbling something about 'trashy' television, then this isn't your show.

(Megan M. Retka)

04/03 (National Theatre, Original Cast)

Review:

Chat shows and the National don’t usually go together, but the big hand extended by artistic director Nicholas Hytner towards this cult hit has certainly paid off.

The trailer trash comedy started out in May 2001 as a simple idea premiered at a Battersea Arts Centre scratch night. The show returned for a three-week sell-out season last February before storming the Edinburgh Fringe with a production masterminded by designer Julian 'Shockheaded Peter' Crouch and National Theatre artistic director Nicholas Hytner.

The show is based on Springer's reputation for shameless reality TV
programmes in which members of a studio audience are encouraged to abuse each other and offend viewers. The musical charts a fantastical day in the life of the chat show host as he journeys to heaven and hell confronting the most bizarre of guests. True to the show's promise to mix high and low culture, the cast of 36 consists mainly of unknowns recruited by the National's first ever open auditions.

(Helena Thompson)

Click here to order tickets for showings at The Cambridge Theatre (showing from 14th October 2003 until 27th March 2004)