Review: THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS at The Getty Villa

The new seat cushions aren’t the only thing regulars of the Getty Villa’s annual theatre production are buzzing about this season (even though they are surprisingly comfortable and make the amphitheater a worthy place to sit for a few hours). The word on the street amplified by Museum Director, Timothy Potts is that this summer’s offering, a staging of Bob Telson and Lee Breuer’s 1983 musical adaptation of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus can be described with an unexpected word: ‘fun’. The word ‘fun’ reverberates through the hillside before the show begins following phrases like “this should be”… and “I hear this one is…”. Certainly, this gospel score performed by a supremely talented ensemble is fun. However, from the opening chords of The Gospel at Colonus, which are sung as the chorus surrounds the audience, the electricity that tingles through the evening air entices chills and immediately challenges the reduction of this performance to simply a “fun” evening at the theatre.

The Pentecostal setting of the show is anything but gimmicky. It services every facet of Sophocles’ text. The weightiness of appeasing a higher power and parsing out incestuous bloodlines becomes immediate and urgent, poetic passages about winds and nightingales’ songs become hauntingly memorable (particularly when intoned in Juwon Tyrel Perry’s soaring falsetto), and the entire narrative unfolds at a gripping pace. Raquel Adorno’s costumes in simple hues of ecru and taupe with gold accents allow Cristin Carole’s movement sequences to shine through against the darkening sky. Directors Mark J.P. Hood and Charles Newell have strained the entire piece down to its necessary elements and there is not an ounce of excess in sight.

The Greeks may have been onto something in the acoustics department and this cast takes full advantage of the reverberations they can conjure in the outdoor amphitheater. Mark Spates Smith lends Theseus a full-throated earthiness that makes his stretches of narration feel engaging and conversational. Shari Addison and Eric A. Lewis, who split the role of Choragos, provide bonafide star power for stirring ballads and energizing production numbers. As Ismene, Ariana Burks has a soft-spoken gentleness that belies the power behind her voice and contrasts beautifully against Aerial Williams’ uncorrupted, impassive Antigone. Jessica Brooke Seals’ Evangelist is an immediate crowd favorite whose charisma never dulls for a moment.

Somehow amidst such a stately ensemble, Kelvin Roston Jr. remains the star of the show. His Oedipus is sincere and pitiful as he laments in his tender passaggio, managing to breach genuine sympathy in a role often reduced to iconography. Roston exhibits the full range of his vocal prowess throughout the course of the evening, and when he returns to extoll Oedipus’ eventual redemption, he is livelier and (dare I say it…) more ‘fun’ than any other preceding.

With an onstage band, snappy lighting design by Keith Parham, and a forgiving 80 minute runtime, it would be hard to overhype The Gospel at Colonus. I’m sure audiences will wholeheartedly agree, it is a fun evening at the theatre, but it is also a deeply-felt, palpably-moving, incredibly smart adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy and I hope it will be celebrated as such.

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