Dramaturgical Criticism:
A Case Study of The Gospel at Colonus

Alicia Kae Koger

In developing his concept for The Gospel at Colonus, director and librettist Lee Breuer seized upon the idea of recreating Sophocles's classic tragedy Oedipus at Colonus in a contemporary setting. Breuer told an interviewer that he sought to create an "American Classicism" that would draw upon distinctive elements of American language and culture, rather than upon European models (51). He found in the black Pentecostal church service and its music a vehicle for various dramatic and theatrical elements of Sophocles's drama, including the scapegoat who suffers for the greater good of his community, the theme of forgiveness and redemption in the next life, and choral participation in the unfolding story. Moreover, the fervent singing, dancing, and testifying that takes participants to the heights of religious ecstasy gives music a role in the overall cathartic effect. Working with composer Bob Telson and members of several well-established gospel ensembles, Breuer developed a modern-day adaptation of Sophocles's tragedy of the blind and exiled Oedipus that he hoped would emulate the experience of theatregoers during the golden age of Greek tragedy.

As an audience member of the Goodman Theatre's exhilarating 1990 production of The Gospel at Colonus, I was convinced that Breuer had thoroughly succeeded in his goal. However, the initial impact of the performance later gave way to questions about how the show actually worked in production, how the balance of an Afrocentric and European aesthetic had been achieved, and how a dramaturgical analysis might foster insights into this work for those interested in mounting future productions. Following the principles of "dramaturgical criticism" suggested by Richard Hornby in Script into Performance, I employed the tools and skills of a production dramaturg to analyze The Gospel at Colonus (63). This approach involved a study not only of the written text, but of the 1988 original cast recording, a videotape of the 1985 Philadelphia production, reviews, and critical articles on the production. Because comparison of the play with Sophocles's Oedipus at Colonus revealed the centrality of music to Breuer's adaptation, my research led to further study of the history and aesthetic of gospel music, as well as to attendance at a Pentecostal church service. ¹ Most significantly, perhaps, I listened repeatedly [End Page 23] to Breuer and Telson's songs, trying to hear what they told me about the musical itself.

A structural analysis of the verbal, spatial, and temporal patterns of the play lends itself particularly well to the critical analysis of musicals because the music itself provides a ready-made temporal pattern--its rhythm. And the music, in turn, provides the key to a richer understanding of Breuer and Telson's creation. The structure of The Gospel at Colonus is notable for its layering, an effect derived directly from the gospel mode itself. Mellonee V. Burnim has described this characteristic complexity:

The structures of both the [Black Pentecostal] worship service and the gospel song have built-in mechanisms for moving subtly from the simple to the complex. Traditionally, Black church services begin with periods of devotional prayer, testimony, and congregational song; later, they move to the choir processional and the singing of special selections. They then culminate with the sermon. In this way, time is effectively manipulated to build intensity. Likewise, a gospel song itself moves from the simple to the complex by gradually adding layers of hand-claps, instrumental accompaniment, and/or solo voices. (163)

In fact, each song in The Gospel in Colonus can be viewed as a microcosm of the whole, composed on the principle of layering Burnim describes. Most of the songs begin simply with a solo voice accompanied by one musical instrument. Layers of sound are then progressively added through choral harmony, the addition of instruments playing increasingly complex orchestrations, and the introduction of different rhythmic patterns through clapping and percussion. But the densely layered, cumulatively building sound in gospel songs also models the work's broader structure. Broadly defined, the layers in The Gospel at Colonus derive from ancient Greek, Christian, and contemporary African American culture. Although these three cultures are by no means mutually exclusive, each has distinct mythologies, rituals, theatrical conventions, and cultural values that resonate throughout the musical.

Ancient Greek theatre forms the foundation of The Gospel at Colonus. Its source, Oedipus at Colonus, completes the myth of the cursed Theban king by illustrating how he came to be respected and honored at the end of his life despite the horror of his earlier crimes. It champions the values of hospitality, integrity, love, and reconciliation through theatre, Greek society's most public medium of religious ritual. The intimate connection between the ancient Greeks' religion and their theatre drew Lee Breuer to Sophocles as his source, as he indicates in an interview in the New York Times:

The more I understood Greek Theatre, the more I began to feel . . . that the important element in it . . . was its spirituality. I lived in Greece for a year, and it was hard to walk around those theatres, with the altar in the center of the stage, and not know that they were basically churches. (Smith 1, 17)

[End Page 24]

Although Breuer rearranges the order of the incidents in Oedipus at Colonus, he maintains its basic narrative outline, characters, and theme. In addition, he retains the ancient Greek mode of alternating scenes of action that advance the plot with choral odes and narration by messengers and others. By incorporating these three modes into the structure of The Gospel at Colonus, Breuer remains true to his classical source's dramaturgy.

Breuer describes his adaptation of Sophocles's play as "an oratorio set in a black Pentecostal service, in which Greek myth replaces Bible story." ² He uses Robert Fitzgerald's translation of Oedipus at Colonus, an exquisitely lyrical rendering of the play that provides the poetic imagery for Breuer's dialogue and lyrics. The musical is essentially a play-within-a-service in which each participant in the Pentecostal liturgy plays a role in the dramatization of Oedipus's story, enacting the events at the end of Oedipus's life as he seeks a "resting place." Built upon Sophocles's foundation, that narrative includes Oedipus and Antigone's arrival at Colonus (a Pentecostal church); Oedipus's rejection by members of the congregation; his reunion with Ismene; his welcome by the church's pastor; Creon's threats to take Oedipus back to Thebes; Creon's kidnapping of Antigone and Ismene; and Oedipus's confrontation with Polyneices.

Christian mythology, ritual, and values provide The Gospel at Colonus with its second layer. Striving for a contemporary parallel to the ancient Greek ritual theatre, Breuer sets his musical in a contemporary Christian church, where the story of Oedipus's death becomes the text for the worship service. Breuer transforms Oedipus into a Christian hero and martyr whose sins are redeemed through the power of God's love. With the musical's structure modeled on Christian liturgy, the main character's journey reflects the Biblical story of Christ as he is transformed from wretched outcast to honored guest to resurrected savior. ³ The Christian values of love, forgiveness, and redemption from sin are proclaimed and celebrated throughout this dramatization of the Christian church's central ritual. Oedipus's story becomes a sermon on the power of the Christian God's love to redeem even the most wretched sinner.

These associations are amplified by Breuer's handling of character. Every player has at least two identities: as a participant in the Christian church service and a character from Oedipus at Colonus. The Pastor, host and leader of the church's congregation, plays Theseus, Oedipus's host and protector. The evangelist speaks the role of Antigone, Oedipus's loyal daughter. The women of the Ismene Quartet, performers in the Pentecostal service, sing the roles of Antigone and Ismene. ⁴ A deacon enacts the duplicitous Creon, and ushers play Creon's soldiers. The Balladeer and his Choragos Quintet sing the role of Sophocles's chorus. The church's choir represents the Greek chorus as well, fulfilling its function of commenting on the action and serving as an ideal audience. [End Page 25]

Oedipus, by far the most complex character, demands as many as seven performers in certain moments. In one scene, a blind gospel singer, a guest of the Pentecostal church, sings the role of Oedipus, accompanied by a quintet of blind singers. ⁵ These six enact the physical role of Oedipus, while Oedipus's spoken dialogue is delivered by Preacher Oedipus, a guest preacher at the Pentecostal church. Singer Oedipus and his Quintet contribute to the service by telling Oedipus's story in songs that move the plot forward, embellish the action with poetry and harmony, and allow the audience to learn the inner thoughts of the protagonist. The Preacher Oedipus, on the other hand, takes the Oedipus myth as the text for his sermon and narrates the old man's story, occasionally speaking in the first person as the exiled hero. His status as a guest mirrors the exiled Oedipus's status as Theseus's guest in Athens. By using several performers to represent the protagonist, Breuer creates a communal protagonist, a group that represents humanity's collective suffering and possible redemption.

Yet the musical does not dramatize a generic Christian church service, but a black Pentecostal one with its distinctive mythology, rituals, values, and aesthetics. African American culture provides a third layer, with its own distinctive attributes, to Breuer's concept. Foremost among these is the centrality of music and preaching to the black Christian experience. Breuer chose to make his adaptation a gospel musical, drawing upon the traditions, conventions, and aesthetics of that uniquely African American art. The transformative power of words and music, for example, becomes for Breuer a central theme. Distinctive elements of the Pentecostal service--speaking in tongues, shouting, clapping, testifying, call-and-response singing, and preaching with tuned response--all contribute and testify to this power to change. The black experience in American society is represented through Breuer's Oedipus, a blind gospel singer whose suffering and exile from his homeland evoke the pain and indignities suffered by African Americans throughout their history. Finally, Breuer invokes the cultural heritage of African Americans by drawing upon the Afrocentric aesthetic values of improvisation and repetition.

As the mainstay of Pentecostal and Holiness churches, gospel music is invested with the power to communicate the Christian message and inspire worshippers to heights of religious fervor. When the musical opened on Broadway in 1988, Breuer told interviewers that he saw gospel music as a means to bring contemporary relevance to Sophocles's tragedy: "I was trying to say something about classical theater. Gospel was a metaphor . . . an inspiration . . . the living repository of an emotion and a spirituality that had become academic and archaeological in our theatre" (Smith 1). Breuer found in gospel music an analog to the spiritual dimension he believed to be integral to the classical Greek theatre experience, an aspect all but lost on modern audiences.

The composition of Gospel's layers is not as simple as the previous paragraphs imply. Not all layers are present at all moments in the play, and [End Page 26] they tend to overlay each other, blending together. Despite such blending, the layers do not obscure one another; rather, their properties are visible and audible simultaneously. The effect emulates the polyrhythmic quality of gospel music in which the different elements--voices, musical instruments, hand-clapping, foot-stomping, and extemporaneous exclamations and interpolations--all complement one another. The musical contains the resonances of the various layers working together in different ways throughout the script.

Gospel music is also notable for building in intensity over time, a quality noted by Burnim. Like most Western drama, The Gospel at Colonus builds to a climax, mirroring the increasing complexity of its gospel songs as it does. The dramaturg needs to recognize, therefore, not only the musical's layers (its vertical composition), but also its horizontal development. The ordering of scenes and their relationship to one another in time affects our experience. In The Gospel at Colonus, none of the scenes uses layering in precisely the same way, though each successive moment builds toward an ecstatic and cathartic climax. A closer examination of how these vertical and horizontal dimensions function during the climactic scene can lead to a better understanding of how the musical works.

This scene begins with a meditation on death, which Breuer labels "Preaching with Tuned Response." The style of delivery, common in African American churches, relies upon the vocal responses of the congregation for its power. Careful examination of Fitzgerald's translation of Oedipus at Colonus reveals that Breuer took the words of the meditation from the choral poem preceding Polyneices's entrance. In the source text, the Colonian chorus talks about the troubles man faces and his ability to endure despite the pain; the passage refers to Oedipus and his suffering in the third person. In Breuer's version, Preacher Oedipus speaks in first person, personalizing the meditation and giving its subject a more human face: "I think of some shore in the north / Concussive waves make stream / This way and that in the gales of winter. / It is like that with me sometimes--"(43-44). The placement of the speech after Polyneices's exit further emphasizes Oedipus's isolation and the torments he has suffered. Thunder and lightning interrupt the meditation, signaling the hour of Oedipus's death. Sophocles's chorus merely describes the violent climatic changes; in Breuer's Gospel, "a bolt of lightning splits the large downstage column and sears the white piano" (44), intensifying the moment with modern special effects.

Throughout the musical, the piano graphically symbolizes the power of music in Singer Oedipus's life. In Part I, when Pastor Theseus welcomes Oedipus to his church, Breuer's stage directions instruct that "an acolyte removes gladiolas [sic] and tapestry, revealing the white grand piano. Pastor Theseus embraces the blind Singer Oedipus, leads him to it and sits him down" (24). The piano and its music represent Singer Oedipus's sanctuary. By guiding him to the piano, Pastor Theseus leads the hero "home." The piano's significance during crucial moments of the play's action (as well as its dominance of the [End Page 27] stage space) helps communicate a concept underlying the African American layer of The Gospel at Colonus. The power of music to move, heal, and transform is a central tenet of the Afrocentric aesthetic, one amply illustrated in the Pentecostal experience. As Amiri Baraka writes in Blues People: Negro Music in White America, "[M]usic was an important part of the total emotional configuration of the Negro church, acting in most cases as the catalyst for those worshipers who would suddenly 'feel the Spirit'" (Jones 41). Within a Pentecostal church, gospel music serves to invoke the Holy Spirit, to soothe sinners' suffering, and to arouse religious ecstasy in the congregation--ideas connoted in Singer Oedipus's piano. As we will see at the climax of the play, the piano and its associations are central to the action (see fig. 1).

As the scene proceeds, Pastor Theseus tells Oedipus his "hour has come" (45) and Preacher Oedipus promises his blessing on Colonus using Sophocles's words. ⁶ Breuer edits the source speech slightly, reserving some of the lines for a later moment when Pastor Theseus and Preacher Oedipus will speak them in call-and-response mode. He also omits some references to ancient Greek politics, focusing instead on the Christian message that God will punish those who "put God off" (45) and protect those who have sheltered Oedipus. Breuer and Telson then interject a choral ode, the song "Oh Sunlight," whose lyrics are drawn from Oedipus's Sophoclean lines--"O sunlight of no light! Once you were mine!" (l. 1549)--and sung by the Balladeer and Choragos Quintet. [End Page 28]

As the blind Singer Oedipus miraculously moves unaided toward the place of his death, Pastor Theseus and Preacher Oedipus narrate the rest of Oedipus's warning to Colonus. (This action is similar to the convention established earlier in the musical in which the Preacher narrates the role of Oedipus while the Singer sings and enacts it.) Breuer here draws upon one of the most distinctive worship practices of African American Holiness churches, the call-and-response exchange. Call-and-response refers to the African tradition of antiphonal singing that alternates between two soloists or between soloist and ensemble. ⁷ Breuer employs the technique to heighten the emotional impact of Oedipus's death. As Carlton Molette has pointed out, a "salient feature" of African American drama is the "use of repetition in music, dance and speech as a means of heightening emotional intensity" (10). Preacher Oedipus enacts the hero's death while the Pastor narrates the action, repeating each of Oedipus's lines in call-and-response fashion:

PASTOR:

And he said unto me . . .

OEDIPUS:

You must never tell it to any man.

PASTOR:

"You must never tell it to any man."

OEDIPUS:

For these things are mysteries, not to be explained.

PASTOR:

"For these things are mysteries."

OEDIPUS:

You will understand when you alone will come on it.

Alone, because I cannot reveal it to anyone,

Not even my children, much as I love them.

PASTOR:

And he could not reveal these mysteries even to his

children. (46)

OEDIPUS:

Remember me. Be mindful of my death.

And be fortunate for all the time to come.

PASTOR:

Remember him. Be mindful of his death.

And be fortunate for all the time to come. (48)

This section, labeled "The Teachings," evokes biblical axioms, a familiar part of Christian worship, using distinctively African American performance techniques.

At this point, the Christian layer of The Gospel at Colonus begins to dominate the Greek foundation. Oedipus's blessings on Athens recall those of Jesus and later Christian saints and martyrs who were believed to have brought good fortune to those they met; Oedipus, like Jesus, is a messenger with "good news." [End Page 29] In the context of The Gospel at Colonus's church service, Preacher Oedipus, Singer Oedipus, and his Quintet represent reviled outsiders who ultimately win acceptance and bring an important gospel message to the Pastor's congregation. That message teaches about living in this world and accepting the inevitability of death. The scene also establishes Oedipus's role as scapegoat; his death (like that of Jesus) will result in the salvation of the entire community of Athens, fulfilling the gods' prophesy, just as Jesus's crucifixion fulfilled the promise of Old Testament prophets.

The action here is accompanied by repetition of selected lyrics of "Oh Sunlight." The song does much more than recall the choral odes of Greek tragedy. It is sung by the Balladeer and Choragos Quintet in Oedipus's voice, using Sophocles's words to describe the hero's passage to the underworld. Significantly the Balladeer, one of Oedipus's strongest antagonists earlier in the musical, becomes his spokesperson during the song. The device shows how important Oedipus has become to the community represented by the Balladeer and his quintet. The slow tempo and mournful tone of "Oh Sunlight" contrast markedly with the earlier upbeat numbers; the lack of a pronounced beat and elaborate choral singing emphasize the gravity of the moment. ⁸ Although the music is not complex, its interweaving with the dialogue and action add texture to the scene's structure. Perhaps most significant is the song's final line, sung a cappella by the Balladeer: "Once you were mine," he sings, referring to the sunlight. This final line represents a reversal of the layering pattern observed in the play's other songs. Rather than building to a dramatic climax, the song is stripped to its essence: the solo voice of the Balladeer. Implicit in the song's construction is the reality of Oedipus's (and all people's) solitude in the face of death.

The layer of Christian resonances emerges strongly at the moment of Oedipus's death. Preacher Oedipus completes his ascent to the entranceway filled with "the fogs and flickering lights of the underworld" (47). After he speaks Oedipus's last words--"Remember me. Be mindful of my death / And be fortunate for all the time to come" (47)--he disappears. The line evokes Christ's instructions to his disciples at the Last Supper: "This is my body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of me" (I Corinthians 11:24). After Preacher Oedipus's exit, Singer Oedipus and his Quintet remain onstage, their deaths symbolized by the lowering of the white piano while they remain seated around it. In this way, all the actors who embody Oedipus vanish from the stage. "Eternal Sleep," sung by the Choragos Quintet, accompanies the lowering of the piano, using the words of Sophocles's final choral poem, which prays for Oedipus's eternal rest. At the song's end, a gaping hole--a grave--dominates center stage. The open grave recalls the empty tomb discovered on Easter morning by Mary Magdalene (John 20:1-2). Oedipus's death represents not only the movement of Breuer's plot toward its cathartic climax, but the ever-changing relationships among the layers of his construction. Here the Christian and African American layers dominate visually while the ancient Greek layer provides only the words. [End Page 30]

The Choragos Quintet's rendition of "Eternal Sleep," the prayer for Oedipus's peace in the next world, recalls contemporary gospel hymns. Breuer derives the lyrics from the choral poem following Oedipus's final exit in Oedipus at Colonus, which ends with the words, "Eternal sleep, let Oedipus sleep well!" (l. 1578). Unlike "Oh Sunlight," "Eternal Sleep" is a textbook example of a typically structured gospel song. Its musical introduction consists of piano chords to which organ, drums, and bass guitar are added. The song's verse and refrain construction features a soloist on the verse and the ensemble on the refrain. As in previous songs in the show, the soloist's first verse adheres closely to the song's melodic line. With subsequent verses, the soloist improvises, embellishing the musical line using a vocal technique called "melisma." With the third repetition of the chorus, the soloist begins to interpolate lyrics: "Sleep on, sleep," "I know you had a hard time," "You suffered," "Down, down you go. Where you go no one knows." At this moment the choir begins to clap in syncopation as the song builds to its climax. The final lyric is a kind of denouement in which the clapping, humming, and back-up singing cease and the soloist sings, accompanied only by the piano: "Let him sleep well." In contrast to all the other songs in the musical, "Eternal Sleep" does not resolve harmonically on its final note. Composer Telson implies musically that Oedipus's fate has not yet been resolved.

"The Mourning" follows. Here again, Breuer builds his scene upon Sophocles's foundation using Antigone's agonized description of her father's death. In keeping with the convention established earlier, Evangelist Antigone speaks all the lines while Singer Ismene weeps silently. Pastor Theseus takes the role of comforter, speaking lines originally attributed to the Chorus by Sophocles. Breuer again employs the Afrocentric principle of repetition in his adaptation of the Greek, with Antigone and the singers repeating Theseus's lines--"Mourn no more / Those to whom / The night of earth gives benediction/ Should not be mourned. Retribution comes" (51 and l. 1751-53).

The next scene in The Gospel at Colonus provides the only major incident in Breuer's adaptation that has no antecedent in Sophocles's tragedy: Oedipus's resurrection. Here Breuer brings his Christian and African American layers to their logical conclusion, giving his musical a climax that rivals those of ancient Greek tragedies. Although the resurrection of Oedipus is not part of Sophocles's original play, the catharsis it achieves is consistent with the emotional and psychic effects that Aristotle defined as the heart of ancient Greek tragedy. Aware that the incidents following Oedipus's death in Oedipus at Colonus (the daughters' mourning and the messenger's recounting of the protagonist's last actions) might not be as powerful for a modern audience, Breuer searched for a contemporary experience of catharsis. He told New York Times writer Wendy Smith:

The Pentecostal, Afro-American church . . . gives you a living experience of catharsis in the world today. . . . I wanted to show them: This is the cathartic experience, this is what Aristotle was talking about, this is what [End Page 31] Greek tragedy is, this is what our entire Western dramatic culture is based on. You begin to understand catharsis by experiencing it. (H:1+)

In keeping with the musical's structural pattern and the cultural and aesthetic values of the African American church, Breuer and Telson chose a powerful gospel song to evoke their modern catharsis.

As Pastor Theseus comforts the sisters, a woman of the choir begins to sing, "Lift Him Up," a doxology or hymn of praise to God. Echoing the words of Oedipus's earlier song, "Lift Me Up," the soloist outlines the lessons learned from Oedipus's life: "I was blind, he made me see." ⁹ Following the gospel principle of movement from simple to complex, composer Telson adds the choir's voices to the song and gradually increases its tempo. As the volume, tempo, and number of voices in the song increase, the music's power literally resurrects the Singer Oedipus, who along with his Quintet, ascends from the grave with his piano. At the same time, "the Preacher reappears in the high entranceway and descends to the pulpit" (52). The cast continues to sing and celebrate with hand-clapping, foot-stomping, and dancing as Oedipus overcomes death.

"Lift Him Up" brings Oedipus back to life and the principle of multiple layering reaches its climax. With each successive verse, Breuer and Telson add layers of sound, rhythm, and harmony, which coalesce at the song's conclusion to resurrect Oedipus. The song begins with the solo voice accompanied by the Hammond organ. The tempo is slow and mournful, the dynamics quiet, reflecting the scene's somber mood. The singer uses melismatic vocal embellishments to convey her grief. The soloist's vocal acrobatics reach far beyond any that have been heard previously, alerting the listener to the moment's significance. Her interpolations of the melody interact in a call-and-response fashion with the organ. Both elicit affirmations from the Choir. The first six lines build to their own sub-climax as the soloist hits a high note at the end of the phrase, "So heavenly."

As the soloist concludes this section, the Choir begins to sing the refrain, "Lift him high. Lift him higher, higher," accompanied by brass, guitar, and percussion. A tambourine adds a syncopated beat on top of the melody, creating a complex polyrhythm. The rhythm of the second verse is further complicated by alternating up- and down-beats in which the soloist sings in counterpoint to the percussion rhythm. During the third verse, the chorus begins call-and-response with the Soloist, singing, "Crying Hallelujah" and humming underneath. Throughout the song, tempo, volume, and pitch increase. When the soloist sings her second high, sustained note, Singer Oedipus rises. He has been called back to life by the cumulative power of his community's music. The song recalls the "tempo and manner of a shout," ¹⁰ the sacred dance handed down by early African American Christians to their modern Pentecostal ancestors. The shout expresses religious ecstasy through physical movement accompanied by fervent singing and hand-clapping. This physical and vocal [End Page 32] expression of religious conviction has the power to heal and transform the faithful. Breuer and Telson recreate the shout's cathartic energy onstage with "Lift Him Up" and its multiple layers of sound.

This climactic scene forms the heart of Breuer's adaptation. Here he most directly fuses Sophocles's story with Christian theology by adding Oedipus's resurrection. More significantly, Breuer builds the scene upon the power of the music--the very music that forms the structural backbone of his play--and in so doing transcends both Sophocles and the Christian myth. He demonstrates the power of music in African American Christians' lives--its power to encourage, to uplift, indeed to resurrect, despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. To reach this climax, Breuer and Telson add layer upon layer: the story of Sophocles's protagonist, portrayed by blind, African American gospel singers, is conveyed through the poetry of Fitzgerald's translation and brought to life through gospel music. It is an ecstatic, cathartic experience for characters and audience alike. The distinctive layers of the composition are no longer discernible; the piece fits together in a satisfying artistic whole. Thus Breuer achieves his goal of creating a classical theatre that speaks to contemporary American audiences on their terms and in their own language.

As this exploration of Lee Breuer's The Gospel at Colonus has demonstrated, textual analysis of musicals is especially complicated because music adds other dimensions to the script and has separate implications for performance. Given the complexity of most musical texts, dramaturgical criticism can be particularly helpful in sorting out the elements of a complex, performative whole. Structuralist analysis gleans the patterns of both musical and lyrical construction, and demonstrates how those patterns manifest themselves in the text. When combined with social, historical, and theatrical research, such analysis can provide greater insight into the workings of any musical. Dramaturgical criticism not only provides future directors with a means of understanding a particular script, but also can be used to create an historical record of a particular production, documenting how it was executed. Such detailed analysis can supplement a director's own production research and preparation, assisting in a practical way the complex process of perceiving and realizing the interactive layers of text, image, and music in performance.

Alicia Kae Koger is Associate Professor of Drama at the University of Oklahoma.

Notes

1. I continued my study of African American music, theatre, and dance at the American Dance Festival/ NEH Summer Institute, "Interpreting the African American Experience through the Performing Arts," 17 June-19 July 1991. Thanks to the NEH, the Oklahoma Foundation for the Humanities, and the Research Council of the University of Oklahoma for their generous support of this research.

2. Lee Breuer, The Gospel At Colonus (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1989), xv. All subsequent page citations refer to this edition.

3. Mimi Gisolfi D'Ponte compares the musical to medieval Christian drama in her essay "The Gospel at Colonus (And Other Black Morality Plays)," Black American Literature Forum 25.1: 101-11.

4. D'Ponte has noted that the singer playing Ismene has no dialogue, while the actress playing Evangelist Antigone sings no solos. She writes, "[This] use of separate performance modes is reminiscent of the sisters' interaction in the Sophoclean text of Antigone" (107).

5. Clarence Fountain and the Five Blind Boys of Alabama played Singer Oedipus and his Quintet in most of the major productions of The Gospel at Colonus. Despite Jim Crow laws and institutionalized segregation throughout the South where they performed since the 1940s, the sextet achieved popular acclaim and star status in the music world with its renditions of Christian hymns in the classic gospel style. The symbolic parallels between these wandering blind troubadours and the sightless and exiled Oedipus were unmistakable in production. In using them to embody the suffering and degradation of the profoundly religious tragic hero, Breuer created another layer of identity for his protagonist.

6. See Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, trans. Robert Fitzgerald, Greek Tragedies, ed. David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, vol. 3 (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1960) l. 1517-20, 1533-39. All subsequent line references are to this edition.

7. For more information, see Southern, 17-20.

8. My analysis of the music, lyrics, and performance style is based upon the original cast recording of The Gospel at Colonus. Elektra/Asylum/Nonesuch Records, 1988. All subsequent references to lyrics derive from this recording.

9. Note the similarity of this lyric to the familiar Christian hymn "Amazing Grace": "I was blind, but now I see."

10. William Dargan, personal interview, 25 June 1991.

Works Cited

Breuer, Lee. Interview with Gerald Rabkin. Performing Arts Journal 8.1 (1984): 48-51.

----. The Gospel at Colonus. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1989.

Breuer, Lee and Bob Telson. The Gospel at Colonus. Elektra/Asylum/Nonesuch Records, 1988.

Burnim, Mellonee V. "The Black Gospel Music Tradition: A Complex of Ideology, Aesthetic, and Behavior." More Than Dancing: Essays on Afro-American Music and Musicians. Ed. Irene V. Jackson. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985. 147-67.

D'Aponte, Mimi Gisolfi. "The Gospel at Colonus (and Other Black Morality Plays)." Black American Literature Forum 25.1 (1991): 101-11.

Dargan, William. Personal Interview. 25 June 1991.

Hornby, Richard. Script into Performance: A Structuralist Approach. New York: Applause, 1995.

Jones, LeRoi. Blues People. Negro Music in White America. New York: William Morrow, 1963.

Molette, Carlton. "Afro-American Ritual Drama." Black World 22.6 (1973): 4-12.

Smith, Wendy. "Sophocles with a Chorus of Gospel." New York Times 20 Mar. 1988. H1+.

Sophocles. Oedipus at Colonus. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. Greek Tragedies. Ed. David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Vol. 3. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1960.

Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans. A History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1983.