J. Hoover v. Lou Sapphire
Old Testament rap hit visits Azimuth

JOB: THE HIP-HOP MUSICAL
Written by Jerome Saibil & Eli Batalion

The staging of modern adaptations from the Bible appears to skeptics a dubious temptation. Past failures represent a litany of bad theatre, bad religion or both, and popular successes represent an ironic dependence on slick spectacle to deliver messages of morality or spirit. But Montreal-based artist Jerome Saibil, in town with his FDLT Productions co-founder and childhood friend Eli Batalion, has much greater faith in the company’s mandate, which is precisely to bend and blur artistic boundaries.

"In this case, I’m really fascinated by religious studies, but only because I don’t actually believe in God. I just enjoy it as an inquiry into human psychology and imagination," he says. "And as a form, hip-hop is so rich – but most MCs rap only about themselves, women, or guns. Instead, we want to tell old stories in new ways."

If one is to believe all the five-star hype, the boys are pulling it off with stoopid style. Job: the Hip Hop Musical was the rap of Fringes in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and Winnipeg, where Azimuth’s Chris Craddock saw the show and invited Saibil and Batalion into the Azimuth season. "We really dig Chris and the work he does," says Saibil, who integrated Edmonton into a tour that will see remounts of the show in Montreal and Toronto and finishes with a run in NYC.

"Faithful" to the Old Testament story of Job, which the Brown University philosophy grads studied together in Hebrew during high school, the new spin takes place at the Hoover Record Company, a hip hop record label. "So [in the Bible], Job has, like, ten thousand camels, seven thousand sheep, five thousand whatever," explains Saibil. "In our story, he has 10% of the company shares; $700 000 a year in salary; five vacation weeks; three company cars; a dental plan. By switching those sheep for shares, we hope to activate the issues in a meaningful way, through a story that could happen to someone you know."

They also integrate allusions to another Biblical narrative. "It’s a play within a play, narrated by MC Cain and MC Abel. The discussions between MC Cain and MC Abel come out of discussions that Eli and I had about the Book of Job, and about the play before we wrote it. So we went through and spent three days just arguing back and forth about the meaning before we started to write the rhymes. Those lengthy debates that we had are also the primary inspiration for the MC battles, à la MC battles in hip hop."

Not only does the twenty-three year old Saibil have no formal drama training, he and Batalion first wrote the rhymes and beats, rehearsed and mounted their hit in less than two weeks – directing each other, without workshops or dramaturgy. Although solidly scripted, the show’s hurried creation kept its spirit true to freestyle spontaneity. The play riffs musically on everything from the Beatles to Bizet to Blige, and is rich in rhyming wordplay, with character names like J. Hoover (‘Jehovah’); Lou Sapphire (‘Lucifer’); and Job Lowe (‘Joe Blow’).

Not just like the genre of the musical, but also like the verse dramas of Shakespeare, the boys hope to tap into theatre’s oral history and "revive the trend of rhyming on stage, in a way that’s not just weird, or for kids." And although they take no moral hard line, they do hope the show gets people thinking. "We want to raise issues and implications that audience members ought to settle for themselves–by witnessing these Devil’s advocate extremes."

— Jon Kolskog