The second performance of Dead Man Walking had Kristin Jepson as Sister
Helen and Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Joseph de Rocher. Jepson was slightly more
conventionally girlie than Susan Graham, with an underlying hard edge. Her
attractiveness and toughness weren’t quite as seamlessly integrated as
Graham’s. But her personality was if anything even more striking, and her
singing was as rich and expressive in a slightly different register. Tahu
Rhodes was a more conventional demonic villain, big and good looking with a

fine, heavy baritone. His final confession was much more of a conversion,
and much more absolute.

The rest of the cast was as committed and effective as at the first
performance. The audience was low on the A-list in comparison, but it was
packed with high school students and nuns in old-style habits. I wondered
what the nuns would make of the definitely R-rated opening murders, and the

satirical treatment of the prison chaplain, but there was no sign of
anybody leaving. A serious depiction of a nun (completely within the modern

Catholic tradition) as heroine is obviously too good to miss. And this open

treatment of the emotional complexity of real-life murder and retribution
is at least compatible with Christianity, though Sister Helen’s belief set
probably owes as much to patrician noblesse oblige (or one-nation Toryism)
as to her faith.

There is no question that Dead Man Walking is worth listening to more than
once. The libretto is substantial as well as entertaining, and the music is

interesting, perhaps less radical than it purports to be but always working

with the words. Even more importantly, even though the detail is always
there, the whole work is conceived as music theatre and provides material
for grand effects as well as close ups. In particular, it moves seamlessly
from soliloquies through dialogues to ensembles and quasi-choral set
pieces, introducing conceptual and musical themes in conflict or dialectic.

This is particularly striking in the sequence at the end of the first act,
where Sister Helen starts off alone and horribly aware of her isolation
after making her commitment to Joseph. The pardon board hearing
materializes around her, and Joseph’s mother makes her plea, only to be
interrupted by the murdered young woman’s father. The four parents,
cumulatively, tell Helen what it is like to lose a child, then Joseph’s
mother and Helen state their variants on the theme. After a dialogue
between Helen and Joseph, Helen faints with tiredness and has a vision of
all the people involved -- prisoners and prison officers as well as all the

parents and Joseph himself -- expressing their feelings, each with their
own theme. Remembering the first performance, I merged the first, parents’,

ensemble with the more complex hallucination ensemble, perhaps because they

are “real-life” and hallucinatory variants on the same theme, the
conflicting voices of gut feelings that can’t be denied.

It’s also clear, though, that both the production and the commitment and
individual contributions of the performers are important. It will be
interesting to see how the recording comes over, and how another production

works out.