Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, who are you, what have you sacrificed?” Tim Rice’s lyrics were audible all across the radio dial that year I began my nine-year teaching stint in northern New Brunswick. If the 1960s saw the birth of the concept album and the rock musical, the ’70s turned out to be the proving ground for rock opera.
Framing the last seven days of Christ with power guitars, and treating the principals of the Gospels as pop-rock fish out of water was daring, if not inspired, musical theatre, and irreverent enough to sell, first vinyl, and later tickets. Headlines can always be woven out of religion and how it is represented as entertainment. Lately it’s been Mel Gibson’s zealous-to-a-fault depiction of the lacerated Christ, 34 years ago it was a likely combination of mythic storytelling opportunity and cynicism.
Jesus Christ Superstar: A Rock Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice was first produced in a London recording studio in October of 1970, and staged for the first time the following year, in New York. It became a hit. Norman Jewison’s 1973 cinematic adaptation, garnished with Israeli tanks and fighter planes, was a modest success. ACT’s production included additional music written for the Jewison film.
It’s not about the story—Is JC a man or a god? Can Judas handle the truth?—and heaven knows there are few surprises to sing of, but the best of the music is catchy, the single hit being “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” (much as “Memories” much later represented Cats, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” Evita, and “Music of the Night” The Phantom of the Opera).
Depicting JC as internally tortured and his Apostles as intense, restless, and borderline dissolute was once a way of connecting with the young, and a 2004 audience must welcome nostalgia and, for today’s youth, discovery. Devotion is no more an issue now than then. One doesn’t sit through Superstar to find religion. That noted, ACT’s production and company were A-1, the leads played with an appealing fervour, in good spirit and even greater voice.
It’s no accident that Judas got top billing in the original. The bad boy of the Rock of Ages carries this production on his miserable shoulders, and Albert Kays met the challenge. His raw-voiced stage dominance of the periodically volatile, mostly resigned JC, played with conviction by Jeremy Hickey, was impressive. Just as well that the action comes to a head shortly after Judas hangs himself.
If Maria Campbell was no Yvonne Elliman (she played Mary Magdalene in the original production and in the Jewison film), neither was she anything less than charming and vocally smooth. David Moses was a riveting Pontius Pilate. John D. Farrell’s Herod (Zero Mostel’s son Josh in the film) lost his place in the pod opening night, but word is that he redeemed himself—as campily as required—for the rest of the run.
Choreography was delightfully effective. The sets were serviceable, the lighting adequate. Considering that the original orchestra numbered 33 musicians, the 14 in the pit at the Confederation Centre were nothing if not impressive. A splendid job of producing and directing.
The standing ovation (what else?) was not for any emotion dredged up through this superficial attempt by Rice and Webber to give voice-in-song to the wellspring of 2,000 years of Christianity, but for the exuberance and accomplishments of the mostly young performers.
Judging by the full houses, ACT might do well to go with another Rice ’n Webber or solo Webber hit in 2005. Personally, I prefer Gilbert and Sullivan, but PEI could stand the novelty.
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