Rappers return with offbeat fringe hit
Duo bust rhymes to reason out story of biblical tragedy

In the same week that The Producers premiered in Toronto, a very different kind of musical theatre opened across town. On Tuesday, Montrealers Eli Batalion and Jerome Saibil reprised their roles as Biblical brothers MC Cain and MC Abel in JOB: The Hip-Hop Saga, at the Tarragon Theatre, bounding onstage in their track suits and do-rags to rap, "MC Abel and MC Cain/ We've done it before, we goin' do it again/So throw your hands high like you's insane/ It's the story of Job, allegory of pain."

Over a pint of beer at Lula Lounge on Dundas West, Batalion and Saibil, both 23, are a bit subdued, seeming more like the Brown University philosophy grads they are. But don't let the degrees fool you: These two are real rhymers, not hip-hop dilettantes.

"We're aware that we're white Jewish guys from Montreal. But we're doing this project because of our love of the art form," says Saibil, the more intense of the two. "If we weren't good MC's, they'd have a right to criticize us."

They needn't worry on that score. There's been little criticism from theatre types of this dynamic duo. Both JOB: The Hip-Hop Musical and its sequel, JOB II: The Demon of the Eternal Recurrence, which have been put together for the Tarragon production, were big hits on the Fringe Fetival circuit, selling out their runs and winning rave reviews.

Toronto, in particular, has plugged into Batalion and Saibil's unique mix of philosophy into hip-hop in their teens, "I bought the Kriss Kross album when I was 13" Batalion admits. In Grade 7, the pair put on their first hip-hop musical, a rap about Jewish history tehey performed for a class project.

They continued collaborating through university and, since graduating from Brown a year and a half ago, have steadily toured the two Job shows, including a run, off-off-Broadway last spring.

Thought most hip-hop heads have entered the Job shows with skepticism, they tend to exit thinking these guys have got the goods - even if their subject matter runs toward Bacon and Benthamrather than bling-bling and booty. In fact, the show is being promoted by Ramos Entertainment Management Group, the concert promoter that handles such groups as De La Soul, Swollen Members and Jurassic 5 when they come to town.

REMG head Jonathan Ramos, a fan of the Job franchise, has been promoting the show like a concert, hiring "street teams" to hand out flyers at clubs - a method of advertising not usually exploited by theatrical troupes.

As a result, a lot of people coming to see Job have never set foot in a theatre.

"That's part of our mission: to bring people into the theatre who wouldn't normally go," Saibil says.

— J. Kelly Nestruck