Blasphemy and a good night out

Warning: This post contains profanity. I was going to write around it, but decided that didn't go with the spirit of the post.

Jerry Springer, the Opera is going on tour to 22 regional theatres across the UK. Apparently there was some doubt about the tour coming off because of the protests of a group called Christian Voice. They threatened to picket the regional theatres, and some venues felt that they couldn't guarantee the safety of their staff.

I fully expect that there will be some protests at the the theatres, but I hope it's nice and peaceful, doesn't get out of hand, and doesn't interfere too much with the theatre patrons' night out. Theatre managers are probably nervous as they can remember that there was some considerable violence at a play called Behzti about sexual violence at a Sikh Temple. I wonder did anyone point out the irony that Sikh fundamentalists were protesting about the depiction of some Sikhs (by a Sikh) as violent and immoral by breaking theatre windows and threatening bodily violence. In the end, the protesters won, they play was withdrawn and looks like it will never be staged again.

Jerry Springer, the Opera, by comparsion has had a pretty peaceful history. It started at a South London theatre, then went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (with Jerry Springer himself in attendance one night), then on to the West End for quite a successful run. No protests in sight. Then the BBC decided to broadcast the play on television, and all hell broke loose.

Now, you may be wondering, why would Christians be so upset about this opera? Well, frankly, it's downright blasphemous and the bits that aren't blasphemous to prevailing Christian orthodoxy are of questionable moral content. (Not necessarily immoral, but it does make you ask a lot of questions) The Vol-in-Law and I went to see it in its West End run, and we were actually pretty shocked. First I was a little surprised that it was really an opera and not a musical. Secondly I was a little taken aback that in the first bit of the opera, the chorus sings "What the fuck, What the fuck, what the fucking, fucking Fuck?" Apparently there are over 8,000 occurrences of the F word, if you count each utterance by a chorus member separately.

I didn't know that the opera was blasphemous when I went to see it, and the first half of it isn't.
At this point you may ask the question "What is blasphemy?" And to that my answer is, I don't know, but I know it when I see it. A lot of it was contextual, that is, actors that appeared as certain characters in the first half appeared as Biblical characters in the 2nd half (Jesus, Adam and Eve, God, etc) so there was some cross-over of traits in my own mind, and I feel that was intentional. I can't say more than that without ruining the Opera for those who wish to see it. I have to say though that while I wasn't offended by it, I do know that my old Wednesday night Church of Christ Bible study teacher would have been pretty upset.

I knew it had challenging content and that the first half finale was the chorus dressed as hooded Klansmen tapdancing in front of a burning cross. (And it was fantastic!) So I was quite surprised when the second half became almost a parody of some of the Bible stories and ancillary Biblical myths (e.g. Milton's stuff, Paradise Lost). It was incredibly cleverly done. It was partially written by a guy called Stewart Lee who really knows how to parody the Bible and leave you with a positive moral message (really) - in this case about how your actions affect others. That's a tricky thing to do. And it was good.

Because it is an opera, it's sometimes hard to follow everything that's going on, so we left the theatre a little bemused. It is also strange to come out of a theatre singing "What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fucking, fucking, fuck?" When it was broadcast on the BBC later, we watched and thoroughly enoyed it. On our second viewing we were able to see more in it, understand more of the lyrics and just kind of go with the flow

However, the television broadcast was where things started to go wrong for Jerry Springer. It was shown on the BBC, a public broadcasting corporation and the BBC is funded through a punitive special public tax called the "Television license" and the BBC has a public service charter. In addition, the UK actually has laws against Christian blasphemy ( I think you can legally blaspheme against other religions, but for how much longer I don't know). The Christian groups were pretty upset that their license fee was being used to put on this rather scandalous production on broadcast television. And honestly, I don't blame them. I can see their point. I would never, ever, ever suggest that this Opera not be staged or broadcast, but I do wonder if the BBC was the right place to show it, given its remit.

But now, Christian groups are threatening to picket the commercial theatre productions as well. I just hope that folks who want to see it can go and enjoy it.