STAGE REVIEW : GREEK TRAGEDY, GOSPEL SINGING MIX IN ‘COLONUS’

“I’m a messed-up man,” says Oedipus, who wears a slick white suit and shades. “Live where you can,” says the Preacher in his black robes. “Tell it!” says the choir.

The startling thing about “The Gospel at Colonus” at the Doolittle is how it all falls into place. What do Greek tragedy and gospel singing have to do with each other? Everything, as we now see. But who ever thought to put them together before?

Lee Breuer (words) and Bob Telson (music) took an even more dangerous leap in basing their show, not on “Oedipus the King” but on the Oedipus play that’s hardly even seen, “Oedipus at Colonus.”

Here, Sophocles presents Oedipus as an old man--a Lear, more sinned against than sinning. Like Lear, he wanders with his daughter, looking for sanctuary. The story ends with his offstage death and transfiguration, narrated by a messenger. Not very theatrical.

But wait. What if the messenger is a preacher (Morgan Freeman), telling what happened with the eyewitness fervor of a St. Mark? Suddenly, the passage comes alive. Time and again this happens in “The Gospel at Colonus.” It’s not just a good show. It’s a find, like cracking the code of the Rosetta stone. Suddenly, we can feel the heat of Greek tragedy in performance.

We knew that it had the power to stir terrific emotions in its audiences; we knew that it had some link with Greek religion; we knew that music was involved. But how exactly did it all come together?

Attempts at literally reconstituting Greek tragedy have obviously been guesswork. Breuer and Telson don’t do that. What they do is to suggest that the Greeks may have celebrated their dramatic rites as a black Baptist church celebrates the word of the Lord.

You are allowed to take this suggestion with a grain of salt. There’s nothing pompous or academic about this show. But time and again you find yourself thinking that, yes, this must have been what it was like in that stadium at Epidaurus. The actor as priest. The chorus as choir. The audience as congregation, waving their fans in the heat. The story as Passion play.

And told with real passion. We think of Greek drama as stately, but the rhythm of these performers (often using Sophocles’ text, in the Robert Fitzgerald translation) suggests that we may be wrong.

They can be slow, all right. Teasingly slow, as when a soloist is winding around a note that she eventually intends to finish off, while the choir kids her with ad-libs--”Help yourself!” Fast doesn’t mean much without slow.

But when she does strike--pandemonium! Can you picture the Epidaurus crowd clapping along as Oedipus discovers that he was blind, but now can see? After this show, you can. You can also understand why people went to Epidaurus to be healed. Let it out, brother. Gospel is good for the soul.

Now for some things that bothered me about “The Gospel at Colonus,” particularly after having seen an earlier and simpler version of it a few summers ago at the Denver World Theatre Festival.

It doesn’t tell Sophocles’ story very clearly. We can see that it’s about Oedipus (Clarence Fountain) and Antigone (Isabell Monk) finding safe harbor in Colonus with King Theseus (Carl Lumbly.) But it’s not clear why Oedipus’s brother-in-law Creon (Carl Williams Jr.) suddenly wants him back in Thebes, or why Oedipus is so angry with his son, Polyneices (Kevin Davis).

Here we’re very aware that this isn’t a Gospel service, where preacher and congregation are sharing a story they already know. (The story here is that Thebes is now undergoing civil war and that neither side wants Oedipus’ nearing death to be used against them. But he’s not going to be used as a lucky charm after years of playing the scapegoat.)

The narrative might be less muddy if the show were presented by fewer forces--terrific as their firepower is in performance. The role of Oedipus, for example, gets traded about between Fountain (in the shades), the Five Blind Boys of Alabama (also in shades) and the Preacher (Morgan Freeman).

The device underscores the idea that this is a re-enactment of Lord Oedipus’ passion, not the real thing--an Easter service, as it were. But it also leads to a diffusion of Oedipus’ presence, particularly with Fountain playing him more for joy than sorrow. Accused and despised, he’s not. It’s left to Freeman to provide the gravity, which he does with superb presence.

Gravity isn’t, of course, the essence of a soul service. Here’s my second disappointment with the show. Telson’s music sounds like gospel, all right--with groups like J. J. Farley and the Original Soul Stirrers to sing it, how could it not? But does it reach the ecstasy of gospel?

This listener only got the message once, in the first-act ‘Stop! Do Not Go On” sequence, when Oedipus is reviled by the villagers. Other first-nighters at the Doolittle were regularly transported. But it is the business of first-nighters to be transported. I’d love to know what people who really know gospel music think of this score.

The physical production is fantastic, as if the Doolittle stage had been transformed into a Greek Revival church decorated by Hieronymus Bosch. The choir sits in a steeply-banked loft, swinging their fans, with Oedipus in front of them at his white piano (silent, which is interesting) and the Preacher works at a plexiglass lectern.

Lots of cordless mikes. Lots of light changes. Everybody dressed up in his Sunday best--even better, her Sunday best. That gold gown on Isabell Monk turns Antigone into a goddess, and this seems absolutely right. (Ghretta Hynd did the costumes, Alison Yerxa the set, Julie Archer the lighting.) This gospel has size and power, even if it doesn’t quite make a convert out of you. And Greek tragedy will be never be the same.

‘THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS’ A musical based on Sophocles’ “Oedipus at Colonus,” at the James A. Doolittle Theatre. Presented by the Theatre Group Inc. in association with Liza Lorwin and Some Serious Business Inc. Adapted and directed by Lee Breuer. Music by Bob Telson. Setting Alison Yerxa. Costumes Ghretta Hynd. Lighting Julie Archer. Sound Shelton Lindsay/Rock City Sound. With Morgan Freeman, Isabell Monk, Carl Lumbly, Clarence Fountain and the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, J. J. Farley and the Original Soul Stirrers, the J. D. Steele Singers, The West Angeles Philharmonic Choir, Sam Butler, Kevin Davis, Jevetta Steele, Martin Jacox, Willie Rogers, Butch Hayward, Hearlyn Stelle-Battle, Carolyn Johnson White, Carl Williams Jr. and the Colonus Messengers. Plays Tuesdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7:30 p.m., with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Tickets $12.50-$25. 1615 N. Vine St. (213) 462-6666.