‘Jerry Springer: The Opera’ gives vulgarity 15 minutes of fame

Andy Warhol famously said that everyone gets his or her 15 minutes of fame, but one song from an award-winning 2003 British musical might be a more appropriate comment on America’s reality show- and social media-spurred fame obsession: This Is My Jerry Springer Moment.

That beautifully melodic tune appears in the middle of the first act of Jerry Springer: The Opera, a musical theater/opera hybrid that is enormously vulgar and profoundly brilliant, and had its regional premiere at Grapevine’s Ohlook Performing Arts Center this weekend.

In London, the show was hugely controversial. In addition to the raunchy/offensive content — characters include a transsexual, a matronly exotic dancer and a KKK leader, to name a few — there are aspects considered blasphemous to Christianity. So much so that at the end of its three-year run in London’s West End, a national TV broadcast brought tens of thousands of complaints and threatened boycotts of a Great Britain tour — all of which fed the publicity machine, of course.

“Jerry Springer is an equal-opportunity offender,” says Alex Heika, director of the Ohlook production, an entry in the theater’s late-night series, which in the past eight years has given audiences such adult-themed (read: gory and/or offensive) musicals as Reefer Madness, Evil Dead: The Musical and an original parody of Annie, in which the lead character is a transgender teenager (and the title of which is a derogatory name for transgendered that rhymes with “Annie”).

After Jerry Springer, the late-night show is Silence!, a parody of The Silence of the Lambs that was an off-Broadway and fringe hit.

In Jerry Springer: The Opera, the first act is Jerry’s talk show, with familiar characters such as handler Steve Wilkos and a roster of foul-mouthed guests that include the aforementioned characters. Secrets revealed include infidelity, bizarre sexual fetishes and unsavory alliances.

Without giving away too much, the title character is killed at the end of the first act and descends into hell, a la Don Giovanni.

In the second act, it’s the Springer show again, but the guests are Jesus, Satan and other Judeo-Christian characters, played by the actors who were the guests in the first act — and Jerry has to mediate the forces of good and evil.

Much of the controversy came from select lines, such as when Jesus says, “Actually, I am a bit gay.” And a song sung by Adam, Eve and Mary is utterly profane.

What makes it genius is that the “opera” part of the title is no joke. Although it’s musical theater in structure, a number of roles require legitimate operatic voices. The show, which has music by Richard Thomas and book and lyrics by Thomas and Stewart Lee, is mostly sung-through, with the exception of Jerry, the only character who doesn’t sing.

In 2004, it won four Olivier Awards (the equivalent of the Tony), for best new musical, best sound design and best actor in a musical and, interestingly, the operatic Greek chorus won best supporting role in a musical (they play audience members).

“I do think adding this element of opera makes it more interesting,” Heika says. “Somehow, by juxtaposing opera with something so classless, you respond to it more.”

Commitment to live music

Ohlook is a youth-focused community theater, with programs for children, teenagers and local adult performers, but its commitment to live music goes beyond typical community-theater standards. A reduced orchestra of three plays in Jerry, although the concurrent mainstage show, the area premiere of Green Day’s American Idiot (running through July 26), has six musicians, and this is in a space with only 70 seats.

“That’s a testament to [Ohlook founders] Matt and Jill [Lord],” Heika says. “When Jill has the opportunity, they are not going to use canned music.”

In fact, Matthew and Jill Lord both were opera singers. He has sung at the Met, and they both have extensive regional credits. She played the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor a number of times, including at the Fort Worth Opera in the late 1980s, and at San Francisco Opera, where she and Matt met.

They started Ohlook in 2002, performing in the Lancaster Theater (next to the Palace Arts Center) on Main Street in downtown Grapevine. A few years later, they moved into a tiny space behind Main Street, and about five years ago, into their current home in a Grapevine strip mall.

Two years ago, they expanded into the space next door and now have rehearsal space, a small costume shop and a decent-size lobby/ticket booth. Classes for kids, youth and adults run year-round.

In 2006, Matthew Lord started the 3 Redneck Tenors, which debuted at Bass Hall and became popular in the second season of America’s Got Talent, when they were eliminated in the Las Vegas round. The Rednecks have continued performing, including during several successful seasons in Branson, Mo., where Matthew became friends with the real Jerry Springer.

“He is the nicest guy in the world,” Matthew Lord says of the famous talk show host who has reportedly gone on record saying that he likes Jerry Springer: The Opera — although, he said, seeing a show with himself as the main character was “uncomfortable.”

If extensive foul language, persistent raunchiness and religious jokes don’t make you uncomfortable, Jerry Springer: The Opera really does have something profound to say about society’s continual dumbing down. And interestingly, it doesn’t judge the eccentric chair-throwing Springer guests, which so many of us have certainly done.

After all, if it’s your Jerry Springer Moment, to quote a lyric from that song, you “don’t want this moment to die.”

This story was originally published July 19, 2015 at 7:16 AM with the headline "‘Jerry Springer: The Opera’ gives vulgarity 15 minutes of fame."