By Carol de Giere,
Author of The Godspell Experience
“Light of the World” and Speak-Singing
“Light of the World” is a Godspell song that comes just before an intermission break in the stage production. With the spoken words “You are the light of the world,” the song is introduced by “Herb” in the original script from 1971 and “George” in the 2012 script. Stephen Schwartz originally set up the song in this way for cast member Herb Braha, who was a talented comic actor but not a singer. As can be heard on the original cast album, Herb would speak-sing the first lines of the song (on the order of Rex Harrison’s song performance in My Fair Lady).
“Light of the World” Music and Lyrics
To generate song lyric lines for “Light of the World,” Stephen Schwartz adapted an unrhymed passage from Matthew 5:13-16 that Godspell creator John-Michael Tebelak had included in an early script draft. In the Matthew text, for example, Schwartz read the line: “But if the salt has lost its flavor, what can make it salty again?” He transformed the expression with rhythm and rhyme: “If that salt has lost its flavor, it ain’t got much in its favor.”
Read about all the songs of Godspell and learn everything about the musical in The Godspell Experience: Inside a Transformative Musical. It features a foreword by Stephen Schwartz.
Schwartz’s music for “Light of the World” is a mix of styles. Godspell’s original music director Stephen Reinhardt comments about the music, “‘Light of the World’ is a rock ‘n’ roll blues song until you get to the break ‘let your light so shine.’ That gets into more of a pop showtune kind of thing, which at the time was a new genre.”
The song is structured in the call-and-response format of a joyful gospel number, with Herb, Jeffrey, Robin, and Peggy each performing one of the “calls.” In an earlier version of the show performed at the off-off-Broadway experimental theatre Café La MaMa, “Light of the World” was a spoken rhythmic group piece, with Stephen Nathan rapping the lead. Cast member Peggy Gordon recalls that for the professional Cherry Lane Theater version, “Steve Schwartz reconceived it as a musical number with Jeffrey, Robin, and I each singing lead because we could wail!”
Herb Braha (Photo courtesy of James Braha)
PHOTO: Herb Braha (courtesy of James Braha).
Remembering Herb Braha who created the original “Herb” character
Herb Braha (September 18, 1946 – February 6, 2016) was a member of the original Godspell cast who, like Schwartz and most of the performers, had studied at Carnegie Mellon University. He had been in classes with the future Godspell composer before they both graduated and moved to New York City in 1968.
John-Michael Tebelak recruited Braha for the Café La MaMa production in February 1971. He stayed for the Cherry Lane production and beyond. Herb explained in an interview for The Godspell Experience, “I did a lot of comedies at Carnegie and some offbeat things in the Studio Theatre which John-Michael saw and really liked.”
After acting in New York and in movies and television for some years, Braha started a costume-related business Richard the Thread, providing fabrics for shows and movies. According to Variety, the company’s clients have included productions ranging from stage plays and opera to the Pirates of the Caribbean and Iron Man franchises.
I first met Herby when he invited me to interview him in his Richard the Thread office in Los Angeles when I was there in 2003. He had known Tebelak well enough to have conversed with him about his directing ideas and he was able to explain some of his influences, such as those from the director Peter Brook. Some of this material is presented in my books Defying Gravity and The Godspell Experience.
Herb emphasized the importance of the rehearsal process for Godspell and the power of developing trust with fellow actors. “Let’s say you’re going to do Death of a Salesman,” he said. “You learn your lines, you get on stage, the director moves you here and there and you do it, and you try to be good. But Godspell was far more creative…. What the actor did on stage had to be organic to whatever the rehearsal produced. You couldn’t place an idea in an actor’s head.”
In the early 70s when performing in Godspell, Braha was particularly inventive with vocal impressions (such as of Groucho Marx) and with physical clowning. In later years he would use his acting and voice talent for movies. You can enjoy watching his small bit as Peter Lorrie in the Humphrey Bogart biopic Bogie, in which Braha recreates Lorrie’s voice and appearance. IMDB: Bogie
Herb Braha lives on in the hearts of Godspell fans who hear his voice on the cast album. Generations of auditioning actors who don’t have strong singing voices have been grateful to him for creating the role of “Herb” who speak-sings “You are the light of the world.”
