With its take on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from John Michael Tebelak’s “Godspell” the Cerritos College’s Theatre Department’s version of it was in all truth, weak with dialogue when it opened Friday in the Burnight Theatre.

As much as it wanted to be modern, as it is set in Venice Beach at this time the musical was no wonder in the expectation that an audience member was hoping for.

The play directed by first-timer Theatre instructor Jim Grollman will have its run of performances from May 3 through May 5 at 8 p.m. and May 6 at 2 p.m.

However, that is not to say that, that the musical didn’t have its highlights, it did. Kevin Mansell, who played Jesus’ voice projection, was easy enough to understand and when it came time to sing the song, “Save the People” it show that he had the making of a music star.

Alieen Haro, who was in the company chorus and Ai-Jah Johnson, who portrays Robin also have strong vocal ranges that even “American Idol’s” judges could say that both could win the No. 1 rated singing competition.

What I mean by that is when Haro sings the song, “O Bless the Lord, My Soul” and Johnson sings; “By My Side” both of them are able to sustain their voices where the it needs to be that is, on key.

But again, what does create a sense of disconnection for the audience; much let the individual is the dialogue.

I would take in account that perhaps it was because it was opening night as well as the fact that there were those who were in this particular production for the first time such as Gina Maldonando, who portrays Peggy and Haro.

With the show of nervous on stages it was reflection in the performance. The dialogue which tried to sound as hip-hop continued growth in popularity (I was still trying to figure out why, “Yo!” was in the dialogue) made it difficult to draw interest.

And the jokes that were thrown in just because and not for the sake of entertainment also created as sense of distain and awkward moments such as Hammer Vong, who portrays Herb as he dances to the short but, recognizable song, “Like A Virgin” by Madonna.

If it was only for a split second I had to ask myself why that song was necessary within this play and besides Vong was along trying as hard as he could to be funny as he danced but it failed miserably.

Much of the focus has to go back and have the actors try to see how they all can have a connection to the audience.

Moreover, the focus has to be on seeing if the actors can actually create a sense of understanding.

Have the castmembers try to see if they can come up with a better sense of harmonization within that diagolue, but from what was heard in from beginning of the dialogue to the musical numbers in between, that will probably be impossible to fix.

For ticket information visit www.cerritos.edu/theatre