Spirit of ‘Colonus’ Still Moves This Group

Odd couplings are not hard to find in musical theater. Think “The Hot Mikado” or “Carmen Jones.” Think “Jesus Christ, Superstar” or “Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

But “Gospel at Colonus,” which opens a six-day run at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday, brings together a combination of elements so disparate that it’s hard to imagine how the project ever got past the planning stages.

In fact, the production has been around now for a decade and a half, has won Obie, Tony and Grammy awards and been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Not bad for a work that manages, incredibly, to combine Sophocles’ “Oedipus at Colonus” with a gospel music score.

Assembling a theater piece that spans 25 centuries is no easy task, and it took a while for writer-director Lee Breuer and composer-music director Bob Telson to fully understand the work’s true potential. Initially conceived as a brief, 30- to 35-minute piece, it expanded dramatically when gospel singer Clarence Fountain and his group, the Blind Boys of Alabama, became part of the team.

Together for nearly 60 years, the Blind Boys are one of the legendary gospel music ensembles, and a powerful influence upon such secular performers as Bobby “Blue” Bland and Marvin Gaye, among others. In 1995, the veteran group capped a career that had begun on 78-rpm recordings with the first full-length concert broadcast (from Los Angeles’ House of Blues) in the history of the Internet.

Fountain, however, was not impressed when he first heard the initial version of “Gospel at Colonus.”

“I thought it sounded horrible,” he said. “Because they had no concept of gospel as I preferred it. So we had to tear it up and piece it back together--add more singing, more tunes, more everything, to help give it a whole new outlook. And that was a big change, a lot more than a face lift.”

As the work was gradually transformed from a brief, half-evening set piece into a large, expansive, emotionally rich theatrical piece, several crucial elements emerged.

The part of Oedipus, for example, was assigned to Fountain and the Blind Boys. It was a risky but inherently theatrical maneuver to ask the blind singers to portray the self-blinded king. But it underscores the drama, as well as the redemptive qualities of the play, which takes place 20 years after Oedipus has experienced the devastating revelation of his origin.

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Equally vital were the spiritually uplifting energies created by the gospel singers--in Cerritos, the Blind Boys, the Original Soul Stirrers (from the original cast) and the L.A. Joy choir.

Breuer points out that the initial concept came to him when he discovered that the theater of Dionysus in Athens contained an altar, and that the concept of catharsis was essential to Greek theater.

“It dawned on me,” he said, “that the theater was a service. And then I thought, well if it’s a religious service, then catharsis itself is a religious moment.”

Telson, who has a long history of performing with gospel groups, agrees. He notes that in ancient Greece, the theater had a significance to the community not unlike the role that black churches play in African American communities today. He communicated that thought to the singers.

“The performers realized,” he explained, “that they could experience this as an extension of their own ministry. And that the message we had, although it came from an ancient Greek play, was not all that different from the message in their own singing.”

The original casting of Morgan Freeman in the role of the Messenger-Preacher (played by Roscoe Lee Browne in the current production) was another plus, according to Fountain, giving the show the perfect sort of declamatory, down-home fervor.

“He was just right for that part,” Fountain said. “He had the right touch of country to the way he spoke. Now you take Roscoe Lee [Browne], he’s more classical. Where we would say ‘luv,’ he would say, ‘love.’ Roscoe’s more refined, and Morgan was more country.

“So we have to keep Roscoe moving, because when the music goes slow, you lose the pace. So when we can get Roscoe moving the way he’s supposed to move, everything’s all right. But if you get one of those nights when he’s doing a slow drag, it’s like being on a slow boat to China.”

Odd coupling or not, it doesn’t take more than a few minutes of “Gospel at Colonus” before the saga of Oedipus and the sound of gospel seem made for each other.

That’s no surprise to Fountain, who sees gospel as a music whose inherent spirituality makes it compatible with anything and communicative with anyone open enough to receive and share its redemptive message.

“It’s all in how you feel,” Fountain said. “If you feel it, it’s there. If you don’t feel it, it’s not there. I like to feel that everybody who comes out to see this play will feel the message. And we’re going to do the best we can to make sure that they do.”

* “Gospel at Colonus” opens Tuesday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos, and continues through Sunday. Performances: Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 2 p.m. Prices: $25-$55. (800) 300-4345, (310) 916-8500.