[A warm welcome to our Guest Reviewer, Joel Plagenz!]
The Hackmatack Playhouse barn rocks with this uplifting production of Godspell, the fourth time this show has been presented in the theatre’s 51 years. The opening night audience included some who’d witnessed the three previous engagements, along with others paying their first visit to Hackmatack. Speaking of engagements, Godspell director Jacob Zentis proposed to music director Emily Zentis in full costume on the Hackmatack stage during a performance of Les Misérables nine years ago, so the current production is a bit of a family affair.
The cast brings a chorus of fine voices that fill the barn with harmony, blended perfectly with the four-piece pit band. Standout performances include Michael Robert Krebs as Jesus, Jacob Randlett as Judas, and Madison Wenig and Nick Adams among the tight-knit ensemble. When choreographer Sophie Calderwood spills the actors off the stage into the audience for “Day by Day” and other numbers, the whole barn comes alive.
Set design by David Kaye provides a flexible canvas on which the familiar parables of the play unfold, and lighting design by Tayva Young includes unique footlights switched on and off at key moments by a quick stomp of an actor’s foot. Costume design by Shaughnessey Gower with Jacob and Emily Zentis helps draw the viewer into a world that is both historic and timeless.
Along with this season’s earlier plays and upcoming events like the youth theatre camp’s Seussical Jr. and the ongoing midday Sunday Bluegrass Jams, Godspell marks Hackmatack’s own resurrection. The theatre had announced its final curtain last summer, only to come back to life, a reversal of fortune truly deserving of the celebration this production brings to the stage.
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