Aug. 12th, 2013 10:02 pm
025. "People Like Us", Leap Of Faith
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chicafrom3"People Like Us", as sung by Kendra Kassebaum and Jessica Phillips, from the 2012 Broadway musical Leap Of Faith, and as a bonus an earlier version of the song, sung by Kendra Kassebaum, from the original demo recording.
Leap Of Faith is the story of a con man who calls himself Jonas Nightingale; he goes from town to town as a tent revival preacher and fleeces the locals for all he can get before moving on to the next one, with the help of his sister Sam and his choir of Angels. When the revival's bus breaks down in Sweetwater, KS, Jonas attempts to pull the same con once again, but finds complications in the form of local woman Marla and her son Jake.
Leap Of Faith is also a show that, like Wonderland, I have complicated feelings about. It flopped on Broadway, and not undeservedly; while the cast was insanely great (Raúl Esparza! Kendra Kassebaum! Jessica Phillips! Kecia Lewis-Evans! Leslie Odom, Jr.!), the book was a mess. Leap Of Faith had previously had a run at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre with a completely different book, and while opinions are mixed on that production, I think it was a better one. (Though Jessica Phillips is a better Marla than Brooke Shields. Sorry, Brooke.) It's a show that had a lot of potential, and sadly most of that potential wasn't utilized in New York.
"People Like Us" was a number in both the Ahmanson and Broadway productions, and though it had markedly different lyrics in each production, it served the same plot purpose: Sam (Kassebaum) explains to Marla (Phillips) why she and Jonas are the people they are, and the two women find some common ground at last.
(I've offered both versions because they offer substantially different backstories for Jonas and Sam, and I like them both.)
People like us are lucky
People like us are tough
Like it or not, we're all that we've got
And that's got to be enough
People like us have no one
No one but us, that's who
People like us have to stick to each other like glue
And that's what we do
Leap Of Faith is the story of a con man who calls himself Jonas Nightingale; he goes from town to town as a tent revival preacher and fleeces the locals for all he can get before moving on to the next one, with the help of his sister Sam and his choir of Angels. When the revival's bus breaks down in Sweetwater, KS, Jonas attempts to pull the same con once again, but finds complications in the form of local woman Marla and her son Jake.
Leap Of Faith is also a show that, like Wonderland, I have complicated feelings about. It flopped on Broadway, and not undeservedly; while the cast was insanely great (Raúl Esparza! Kendra Kassebaum! Jessica Phillips! Kecia Lewis-Evans! Leslie Odom, Jr.!), the book was a mess. Leap Of Faith had previously had a run at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre with a completely different book, and while opinions are mixed on that production, I think it was a better one. (Though Jessica Phillips is a better Marla than Brooke Shields. Sorry, Brooke.) It's a show that had a lot of potential, and sadly most of that potential wasn't utilized in New York.
"People Like Us" was a number in both the Ahmanson and Broadway productions, and though it had markedly different lyrics in each production, it served the same plot purpose: Sam (Kassebaum) explains to Marla (Phillips) why she and Jonas are the people they are, and the two women find some common ground at last.
(I've offered both versions because they offer substantially different backstories for Jonas and Sam, and I like them both.)
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