Playwright: music and lyrics by Harry Chapin, book by Tom Key and Russell Treyz. At: Provision Theater Company, 1001 W. Roosevelt. Phone: 866-811-4111; $25-$28. Runs through: Nov. 8
It's a rare show that can boast, as this one did in 1981, of being favorably reviewed by both Rolling Stone and Christianity Today magazines. This concord was partly due to the late Harry Chapin's genial score, and partly to Tom Key and Russell Treyz' laid-back adaptation of social-activist Clarence Jordan's similarly inaggressive allegory based on the New Testament gospels. But the chief charm of this comfortable blend of music and storytelling is its humility. Despite a Jesus who eats pecan pie and chili-dogs, one never gets the impression that the messengers' goal is to show us how much smarter than their source material they are.
The biography of Jesus is nowadays as much cultural lore as sacred myth, making easily accessible the humor of our hero's introduction as the untimely offspring of a deacon's daughter and her betrothed in a site-specific pre-Civil Rights Era Georgia, just as the sprawling genealogical annotations that precede it will be appreciated by those familiar with the original chronicle. Likewise, a nursery improvised in an abandoned trailer parked behind an overcrowded motel, Dr. Caiaphas' status as executive director of the Believe In The Bible institute, and the lynching party that ambushes the police van transporting its doomed prisoner to the Leesburg jail on orders from Governor Pilate.
Chapin was always more balladeer than showman, and while not above twitting the extravagant metaphors to be found in commercial gospel music ( though "Spitball me, Lord/Over the home plate of Life" is no more excessive a sentiment than you're liable to hear on actual Sunday-morning radio ) , his lyrics for this gentle re-interpretation of Christian writ reflect a low-key evangelism free of coercive dogma and theatrical pulpit-chewing: an "amen" followed by a musical affirmation entitled "Sho 'Nuff," for example, or Jesus' refutation of the old church laws summarized in the high-stepping ditty, "Turn It Around."
The exuberant string band and pitch-perfect choral quartet, performing in the acoustically-enhanced auditorium housed at the former Duncan YMCA that comprises Provision Theater's new near-southside home, are eminently stageworthy. But a story with multiple characters configured for a single speaking voice requires a soloist of uncommon prowess, and ultimately, what draws us into the play's universe is Timothy Gregory's physically and vocally agile recounting of a yarn to pique the curiosity of the most stubborn secularist.