A new hip-hop musical is drawing praise from
audiences and critics alike, based on the biblical character, Job.
Job: The HipHop Musical, started in Canada and
recently had a successful five week run in New York, earning a four month run
off Broadway for the spring.
The musical’s creators, Eli Batalion and Jerome
Saibil, said that they have never taken any theatre classes.
"At first we really didn’t think that people
would like the show at all. We just thought it was going to really bomb,"
Saibil told Canada’s Star Phoenix.
Batalion and Saibil star as MC Cain and MC Abel
and re work the biblical story of Job into a metaphor on the evils of the music
business.
The musical characters include a record label
president named J. Hoover (Jehovah) and finance VP Lou Saphire (Lucifer). The
theme of the musical and the original biblical story is the concept of bad things
happening to good people.
A sequel to the play is already in the works
and according to Saibil, "we’ve got not just a full plate but several plates."
