It’s not your father’s Godspell, Carol Dunne promised on the eve of the New London Barn Playhouse’s season-opening production of the 1970s musical about Jesus and his followers.
It’s not even the Godspell that first captivated Dunne during a church production she saw more than 35 years ago, or the version that she helped produce at the Barn a decade ago.
“When they asked me last fall to do it, it was an easy ‘yes,’ ” Dunne, the former artistic director at New London’s summer theater company who now runs Northern Stage, said between rehearsals this week. “But I really wanted to avoid any kind of 1960s, 1970s period piece with clown kind of acting. There was a sort of ‘wink, wink’ approach to the audience that felt sort of bohemian then, but that maybe lands a little flat, now.”
Interpreting this musical adaptation of the New Testament stories, particularly the parables in Act I, “was a challenge of creating, in an improvisatory way, something that really speaks to today’s audiences,” Dunne said, adding that the score will include a rap version of one of the songs, and some of the scenes will include skateboarders.
Helping Dunne toward that end is choreographer Kyle Brand, who called the steps for Northern Stage’s recent, season-ending production of Mamma Mia!
“Kyle worked with me on Spamalot!, too,” Dunne said. “We are so on the same page.”
The set for this version of Godspell, Dunne said, has the feel of an old factory, and includes some staging that evokes coal mines.
“We wanted to make it feel like the place that America forgets,” Dunne said. “I was inspired by reading Hillbilly Elegy,” J.D. Vance’s memoir about growing up poor in Appalachia, “which helped me understand better how the divide continues to widen between people in this country. … We didn’t want to hit anyone over the head with this, but we wanted to give the audience a foundation of what happens when we actually listen to each other and work together to bring each other up to a better place in the world.”
Dunne added that when the Barn interpreted Godspell in 2007, “I remember feeling it was not the right piece at the time, for the world. It didn’t land in a profound way. Now, the world is a very agitated and uncomfortable place. … It’s a very spiritual piece about change for the good, being kind to people, supporting each other and building community.”
Following Godspell to the Barn’s mainstage this summer will be the Martha Norman adaptation of the children’s novel The Secret Garden from June 28 to July 9; Stephen Temperley’s comedy, Souvenir, about the life of New York socialite and aspiring opera singer Florence Foster Jenkins, from July 12 to 16; West Side Story, from July 19 to Aug. 6; the Elvis Presley tribute All Shook Up, from Aug. 9 to 20; and On Golden Pond, the Ernest Thompson drama that was turned into an award-winning movie starring Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn in 1980, from Aug. 23 to Sept. 3.
The New London Barn Playhouse opens the 2017 season this week with performances of the musical
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.