by Paul Ledoux and David Young
Directed by James MacDonald
A Canadian Stage Company Production
at the Bluma Appel
March 24-April 19, 2008

   There’s more wispy smoke than fire in Paul Ledoux and David Young’s musical that was a smash hit some twenty years ago. What had then seemed like a fresh, vibrant, and red-hot musical inspired by rock’n’roll sensation Jerry Lee Lewis and his cousin, Jimmy Swaggart (the Jimmy-in-the-pulpit televangelist), now plays like a warmed-over jukebox anthology that departs from its real-life sources only to fall into facile and superficial generalities strung out for over two hours and grinding to an inevitable conclusion. Fire begins with fear—paranoid American fear of Communism, coloured peoples, and godlessness—but it is really about the “ecstasy” of rock’n’roll and fundamental religion. In this show, cousins have morphed into brothers whose father is a fire-and-brimstone preacher with thundering sermons about the righteous anger of God. Cale is a surrogate version of Jerry Lee Lewis because he prefers the piano to the Bible, and he forsakes hymns for the devil’s music—which means in terms of the 50s South, rock’n’roll with its wild hip gyrations, pelvic thrusts, and other displays of libidinal expression. The devil’s music leads into the devil’s playground of drugs, sex, and violence. Hershel, the other brother, is the straitlaced one—“quiet like an underground river” to quote one of the best lines in the script—who is turned in this production into a bespectacled and awkward young preacher who bumbles through his first Old Time Gospel Hour before he gradually builds his self-confidence and public persona on the radio and then, most gloriously, through the idiot-box. Both brothers fall in love with innocent Molly (good golly!), who has jejune notions of God (whom she conflates with Gary Cooper) and lives in a mobile home with her father who is first Cale’s business manager before becoming Hershel’s political ally. So, it isn’t only the gal who changes the object of devotion!

   None of the characters or incidents is especially original or deep, and the story becomes increasingly predictable as Cale turns (in his brother’s words) into a “neon rooster” and falls into jealous rages, violence, and sordid substance abuse just as Hershel rises to money, power, and influence. Religion triumphs, despite the fact that it uses Jesus to justify its lies. Because the playwrights want a parable, the story has the black sheep or prodigal returning to the fold where he is reconciled to his brother and where everybody finds redemption in Prime Time.

   James MacDonald’s production is beautifully lit by Bretta Gerecke, who has an amazing blue skywash with purple tints for one scene and who tries to compensate for her skeletal metal tower set. The cast and musicians do well by the songs—gospel, rockabilly, rock’n’roll—and there are strong performances by the three leads. Nicole Underhay captures Molly’s initial innocence, shading it with teen sexual yearning, but the character’s journey from that to final toe-tapping, hand-waving religious ardour is not charted adequately by the script. Rick Roberts is at first too “Christian glum” and stiff as Hershel, but he warms into the role, excellently morphing into the hot, hopping, histrionic fundamentalist who clashes ideologically with Ted Dykstra’s Cale, a mix of blistering passion and sodden booziness. Dykstra doesn’t merely repeat his original performance of the role; he re-invents it. His Cale erupts in the rock’n’roll moments, with Dykstra’s dazzling piano playing where his ass has as much virtuosity as his fingers and feet when it comes to performing on the ivories. Apart from this performance and the music—including such standards as “Good Golly Miss Molly,” “Whole Lotta Shakin’,” and “Great Balls of Fire,” or traditionals such as “Swing Down Chariot,” “Old Time Religion,” and “Angel Band”—there isn’t much blaze on stage.

photos: Cylla von Tiedemann

pic 1: Ted Dykstra as Cale

pic 2: Nicole Underhay as Molly; Rick Roberts as Hershel



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