Imagine if Tebelak and Schwartz had the vision for Godspell, but not the book. Their first attempt was a disaster ... via the Psalms.
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Before Godspell: The Psalm Disaster
A counterfactual history
Before John-Michael Tebelak and Stephen Schwartz discovered that the Gospel of Matthew contained everything necessary for a musical—characters, arguments, comic stories, betrayals, reversals, and a charismatic leading man—they made one disastrous attempt with the Book of Psalms.
Their reasoning was understandable. Psalms already contained 150 songs. How much more work could be required?
The working title was Psalms! Tebelak’s first outline read:
Act I: A man is surrounded by enemies.
Act II: God rescues him, or possibly does not, but is praised either way.
Schwartz studied it.
“Who is the man?”
“The Psalmist.”
“What is his name?”
“It changes.”
“Who are his enemies?”
“They aren’t named.”
“What do they do?”
“They plot against him?”
“What do they plot?”
“It doesn’t say.”
This proved to be the central difficulty. Psalms possessed intense emotions but almost no incidents. The Psalmist rejoiced, despaired, repented, demanded vengeance, praised creation, and occasionally woke God up—but he never went anywhere or met anyone. His enemies were numerous yet maddeningly nonspecific. During one workshop, twelve actors stood at the back of the stage representing “the wicked.” But the text supplied them with no particular wickedness to perform.
Tebelak searched desperately for theatrical personalities. “Selah” appeared repeatedly, so he made her a mysterious woman in a veil who wandered through the action. Unfortunately, a biblical scholar explained that selah was probably a musical or liturgical stage direction. Selah was cut, depriving the show of its only named female character.
Psalm 23 became a pleasant pastoral number involving a set that invoked green pastures, still waters, and an expensive mechanical sheep. Water insurance proved prohibitive. Psalm 24 introduced doors that lifted up their heads, creating serious engineering problems. For Psalm 114, the mountains skipped like rams.
There were also difficulties of tone. A gentle song about dwelling in the house of the Lord might be followed by a request that God break an enemy’s teeth.
The longest number, “O How I Love Thy Law,” was based on Psalm 119. Its intricate Hebrew acrostic vanished in English, leaving spectators with twenty-two nearly identical verses about statutes.
Psalms could supply yearning, faith, terror, gratitude, and magnificent images. What it could not supply was a scene.
Then Tebelak opened Matthew.
“Stephen,” he said, “this book has people.”
Better still, the people argued, boasted, betrayed, forgave, and asked foolish questions. Jesus told colorful stories containing travelers, debtors, thieves, bridesmaids, laborers, rich men, poor men, sheep, goats, and one extremely troublesome son. At last there were entrances, exits, jokes, reversals, and things an actor could actually do.
Psalms! was abandoned. Godspell began.
Psalms!: 150 Songs in Search of a Musical
From the fictional Ottawa Citizen, March 1970
The new biblical entertainment Psalms!, now trying out at the National Arts Centre, demonstrates that a book containing songs is not necessarily a musical.
Its protagonist, identified only as “The Psalmist,” spends much of the evening pursued by enemies who have neither names nor discernible plans. He responds by lamenting, rejoicing, questioning God, praising God, and predicting that several geographic features will clap their hands.
John-Michael Tebelak directs with imagination, particularly when rivers, cedars, mountains, and nations must be represented by a company of eleven. Stephen Schwartz has written several attractive melodies, although his liveliest number, “Why Do the Wicked Prosper?,” unfortunately persuaded much of Thursday’s audience that intermission had begun.
The production reaches its nadir with Psalm 119, a hymn to divine law arranged as an alphabet song whose alphabet is no longer visible. It may be the first theatrical number to seem longer than the Babylonian captivity.
The evening concludes with Psalm 150, in which every available trumpet, harp, lyre, timbrel, stringed instrument, pipe, and loud clashing cymbal is employed. The audience greeted the final cymbal with gratitude, since it established beyond doubt that the performance was over.
Messrs. Tebelak and Schwartz are plainly gifted young men. One hopes that next time they choose a biblical book in which somebody enters, tells an amusing story, quarrels with the authorities, or overturns a table.
