PAGEANT REVIEW : ‘Glory of Easter’ Resurrects Jesus’ Triumph in a Big Way

It doesn’t take long for Christ to effect his first miracle in “The Glory of Easter”: Not 10 seconds after taking center stage, he has raised a little girl from the dead and sent her running into the arms of her beaming parents while the organs rumble.

That precedent set, the Crystal Cathedral can get on with the story.

There’s a lot of Passion Play to condense into 90 minutes, and a lot of startling special effects, too. Lasers leading a path to heaven, splashy lights and pew-rumbling sounds duplicating a thunderous rainstorm, pretty angels that descend from heaven with balming beneficence, and lions, tigers and bears (well, actually, tigers, camels, horses, donkeys and a goat or two)--there’s glory galore in the Rev. Robert Schuller’s pulpit in Garden Grove.

To put it all in perspective, Schuller emphatically tells the audience in a pre-show narrative that what it will see is history. “It really happened,” he intones. “The Glory of Easter” is, above all, as much church service as theatrical production. A monumental testament of faith, done with high flourishes of dramatics, it’s an unsubtle, unquestionably devoted depiction of what the congregation believes is “the greatest story ever told.”

Schuller, as he has for the last four years, accomplishes his goal of presenting Jesus Christ’s last days in a manner more immediate and accessible than a Sunday sermon. An emotional oratory on Jesus’ betrayal, His torture on the cross and resurrection can inspire, but a graphic visualization of such events can tattoo impressions on the psyche.

As Times theater critic Dan Sullivan noted in 1986, “The Glory of Easter” is within its rights to be a bit vulgar. Bible spectaculars in Medieval times also found boys and girls tied to ropes and sent spinning above gaping crowds. Their theater had to reflect God and His miracles; the faithful would be disappointed with anything less. Along those lines, this production doesn’t let you down. Ironically, sometimes the spiritual message gets swallowed by all the technological media: When the angels come floating by, you might find yourself wondering just how they’ve been suspended, instead of concentrating on the moral lessons resonating through the cathedral. Is everyone really paying rapt attention to Pilate debating Jesus’ guilt while that tiger prowls hungrily a few feet to the side?

“The Glory of Easter” is unintentionally ironic in other ways as well. At one point, Jesus dispenses some valuable wisdom, suggesting that his Disciples not make a spectacle of their reverence but find God in their own hearts, through quiet prayer.

In any case, director Paul David Dunn has found a gentle and patient Christ in the gaunt Robert Miller. But Miller can’t be called charismatic, a more than minor failing. This even-handed Jesus is someone to respect, even to love, but He doesn’t go beyond a good samaritan persona. He needs more, well, passion, or at least more penetrating conviction. On the positive side, Miller does bring the role a humbling human element: This Jesus can get a little cranky now and then, whenever his equanimity is jolted by his flawed disciples, who constantly must be reminded of their responsibilities.

Just about everyone in the cast plays his or her part big, an approach that, while often artless, seems to fit the show’s flamboyant nature. Carol Lawrence, for instance, makes Mary’s pain a wailing drama of motherly love; the portrait is extreme but also clumsily effective in conveying an unbearable grief.

Lawrence does have some raspy trouble, though, with “This They Cannot Take From Me,” one of three songs scattered through the production. Ed Quiroga as a blind man healed by Christ is rather comfortable with “I Can See,” and Jonel Dayen Christensen as Mary Magdalene is commanding while offering “How Can I Repay.”

Still, the show’s organizers should consider doing away with all the songs. They do nothing to help “The Glory of Easter” tell its tale and, in fact, are intrusive. Then again, in a show that seems to assume that more is better, can anything really be too much?

“THE GLORY OF EASTER”

At the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. Directed by Paul David Dunn. With Robert Miller, Carol Lawrence, Christopher Carey, Robert Winley, Jonel Dayen Christensen, Ed Quiroga, Jeff Richards, Buddy Adler, Otto Coelho, William McCoy, Don Ericson and John Eric Waterhouse. Set by Charles Lisanby. Choreography by Dorie Lee Mattson. Special effects by Rick Helgason. Lighting by Perry Halford and Terry Larson. Costumes by Richard Bostard. Music direction by Johnnie Carl. Plays at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. through April 3, except Mondays and March 15 and 22, at 1241 Lewis St., Garden Grove. Tickets: $14 to $25. (714) 544-5679.