I think we’re all excited for the upcoming televised production of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”
John Legend, Sara Bareilles--these are not the casting choices I would have made. But still. (Jesus: A thankless role. Maybe it makes sense to put someone as boring and pretty as Mr. Legend in those shoes. He will look nice in his fitted white tee shirts. I *am* excited for Brandon Victor Dixon in the role of Judas--the one great role in this show. Judas is the only guy who regularly gets nominated for a Tony Award--Ben Vereen, Josh Young. Mr. Dixon has approached Tony glory twice: via “The Color Purple,” and via “Shuffle Along.” “The Color Purple” was especially surprising, because the role Dixon was handed was a nothing role. If you spend hours trying to determine Dixon’s sexual orientation online, as I once did, for no clear reason, you will discover a man out in the ether, ranting that Dixon once shtupped his--this random man’s--wife. It’s a strange, passionate, ungrammatical monologue. Who knows the truth? Dixon seems a bit arrogant in public exchanges. He seems to like to recall how ardently he was courted to take over the role of Aaron Burr in “Hamilton.”)
Anyway, here’s some information worth knowing before you watch this new production.
-Ben Vereen did not win his Tony for “Jesus Christ Superstar,” but he did win the very next year, for “Pippin.”
-This show, JCS, is one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s better ideas. Judas holds your attention; he seems both to love and to hate Jesus. Certain actors interpret the love to be romantic/erotic love. We see Judas warning Jesus against fame: “All your followers are blind. There’s too much heaven on their mind. And they’ll hurt you if you go too far...If you go too far...” Judas seems to think that Jesus has a Princess Di complex; he, Jesus, welcomes the insane celebrity, and Judas finds this repellent and dangerous. (ALW’s Jesus isn’t strictly a milquetoast. He gets angry. He indulges himself. When a woman tries to rub his feet, Jesus gets pissed at the crazy masses who say this is needless luxury. Like a petulant Aretha Franklin, Jesus lashes out: “You’ll be lost! You’ll be so sorry--when I’m gone!”) Around the time of the crucifixion, Judas gets a memorable little bitchy verbal revenge against Jesus: “Tell me what you think about your friends at the top. Who’dya think besides yourself was the pick of the crop? Buddha, was he where it’s at? Is he where you are? Could Muhammad move a mountain, or was that just PR?” Josh Young--choosing to emphasize his attack on Jesus’s narcissism--allowed his voice to get very loud on the word, “YOURSELF.”
-ALW also gets mileage out of the idea of Mary Magdalene. It’s the problem of being attached to a Great Man. “I don’t know how to love him--what to do, how to move him. I’ve been changed. Yes, really changed. In these last few days, when I’ve seen myself, I’ve seemed like someone else.” Jesus is withholding, moody; he’s a pain in the ass. Mary, a hardened streetwalker, finds herself flummoxed by this dweeby god-man. (“I’ve always been so calm, so cool. No lover’s fool. Running every show. He scares me so. I want him so. I love him so.”) It seems to me Jesus gets one great moment--in “Gethsemane.” Here, like Mary Magdalene in “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” Jesus is trying to understand another being’s motives. The other being just happens to be God the Father. Like a baffled adolescent son, Jesus pleads with God: “I have to know, I have to know, my God; I have to see, I have to see, my God, why I should die. See this sorrow through and do the things you’ve asked of me. Let them hit me, hate me, hurt me, nail me to their tree.” These are crazy, anxious people, in earth-shattering times. Jesus’s repetitiveness seems to underscore his tension: he hits certain verbs over and over, and you might think of an anxious person obsessively picking at a fingernail. Form underlines content. Again, this is unusually smart material for ALW.
-There’s Herod in the butt-less leather chaps. There are the overworked maidens, barking, “Everything’s all right! Everything’s all right!” There are the PEOPLE MAGAZINE-reading masses, asking, “What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s a-happening...?” And there are the three central figures, trying to reset the story. “Could we start again please?” And there is a relentless electric guitar, toward the beginning, suggesting unrest. I’m pumped! I expect to be displeased. But we must try to keep our hopes high! Tune in on Easter Sunday.
John Legend, Sara Bareilles--these are not the casting choices I would have made. But still. (Jesus: A thankless role. Maybe it makes sense to put someone as boring and pretty as Mr. Legend in those shoes. He will look nice in his fitted white tee shirts. I *am* excited for Brandon Victor Dixon in the role of Judas--the one great role in this show. Judas is the only guy who regularly gets nominated for a Tony Award--Ben Vereen, Josh Young. Mr. Dixon has approached Tony glory twice: via “The Color Purple,” and via “Shuffle Along.” “The Color Purple” was especially surprising, because the role Dixon was handed was a nothing role. If you spend hours trying to determine Dixon’s sexual orientation online, as I once did, for no clear reason, you will discover a man out in the ether, ranting that Dixon once shtupped his--this random man’s--wife. It’s a strange, passionate, ungrammatical monologue. Who knows the truth? Dixon seems a bit arrogant in public exchanges. He seems to like to recall how ardently he was courted to take over the role of Aaron Burr in “Hamilton.”)
Anyway, here’s some information worth knowing before you watch this new production.
-Ben Vereen did not win his Tony for “Jesus Christ Superstar,” but he did win the very next year, for “Pippin.”
-This show, JCS, is one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s better ideas. Judas holds your attention; he seems both to love and to hate Jesus. Certain actors interpret the love to be romantic/erotic love. We see Judas warning Jesus against fame: “All your followers are blind. There’s too much heaven on their mind. And they’ll hurt you if you go too far...If you go too far...” Judas seems to think that Jesus has a Princess Di complex; he, Jesus, welcomes the insane celebrity, and Judas finds this repellent and dangerous. (ALW’s Jesus isn’t strictly a milquetoast. He gets angry. He indulges himself. When a woman tries to rub his feet, Jesus gets pissed at the crazy masses who say this is needless luxury. Like a petulant Aretha Franklin, Jesus lashes out: “You’ll be lost! You’ll be so sorry--when I’m gone!”) Around the time of the crucifixion, Judas gets a memorable little bitchy verbal revenge against Jesus: “Tell me what you think about your friends at the top. Who’dya think besides yourself was the pick of the crop? Buddha, was he where it’s at? Is he where you are? Could Muhammad move a mountain, or was that just PR?” Josh Young--choosing to emphasize his attack on Jesus’s narcissism--allowed his voice to get very loud on the word, “YOURSELF.”
-ALW also gets mileage out of the idea of Mary Magdalene. It’s the problem of being attached to a Great Man. “I don’t know how to love him--what to do, how to move him. I’ve been changed. Yes, really changed. In these last few days, when I’ve seen myself, I’ve seemed like someone else.” Jesus is withholding, moody; he’s a pain in the ass. Mary, a hardened streetwalker, finds herself flummoxed by this dweeby god-man. (“I’ve always been so calm, so cool. No lover’s fool. Running every show. He scares me so. I want him so. I love him so.”) It seems to me Jesus gets one great moment--in “Gethsemane.” Here, like Mary Magdalene in “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” Jesus is trying to understand another being’s motives. The other being just happens to be God the Father. Like a baffled adolescent son, Jesus pleads with God: “I have to know, I have to know, my God; I have to see, I have to see, my God, why I should die. See this sorrow through and do the things you’ve asked of me. Let them hit me, hate me, hurt me, nail me to their tree.” These are crazy, anxious people, in earth-shattering times. Jesus’s repetitiveness seems to underscore his tension: he hits certain verbs over and over, and you might think of an anxious person obsessively picking at a fingernail. Form underlines content. Again, this is unusually smart material for ALW.
-There’s Herod in the butt-less leather chaps. There are the overworked maidens, barking, “Everything’s all right! Everything’s all right!” There are the PEOPLE MAGAZINE-reading masses, asking, “What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s a-happening...?” And there are the three central figures, trying to reset the story. “Could we start again please?” And there is a relentless electric guitar, toward the beginning, suggesting unrest. I’m pumped! I expect to be displeased. But we must try to keep our hopes high! Tune in on Easter Sunday.
Comments
Post a Comment