A modern-day Superstar

STRATFORD, Ont. - Forty years on we might suppose Jesus Christ Superstar has slipped into our culture’s vast pool of nostalgia — another thing to be revived by and for the generation with money and memories to spare.

For the first third of a preview performance of the Stratford Festival’s new production of Jesus Christ Superstar there’s a hint of that sort of cynical, money-spinning spectacle. It rushes through hit songs with the overbearing efficiency of a K-tel commercial.

The clockwork efficiency gets an injection of life when Lee Siegel emerges as Simon Zealotes to tempt Jesus into political power and guerrilla war. Suddenly the production has a pulse and passion. Siegel sings with genuine rock’n’roll intensity, excitement and energy.

From this moment forward, the Stratford Jesus Christ Superstar has something new to say.

Forty years ago Jesus Christ Superstar, and then Norman Jewison’s 1973 film version, were launched into a time defined by the generation gap. On one side of that gap a generation remembered the Great Depression and two world wars. On the other side, their children marched against the Vietnam War, for civil rights and made public claims to personal revelations — revelations discovered or expressed in drugs, oriental religion, dissident politics and very loud music.

Jesus Christ Superstar was a way of explaining it all. The Gospel story was a perfect foil for 1969. In first-century Palestine, God was incarnated into a world controlled by the official, state violence of an occupying army and money divided among the tax collectors, Pharisees and temple officials. The rule of money and might in President Richard Nixon’s America was precisely the complaint of every blue-jeaned, sandal-wearing, long-haired protester.

Cold War politics had marginalized and dwarfed everything recognizably human. For the generation that grew up-post war, the only Jesus acceptable was one thoroughly, uncompromisingly human and willing to unmask everything inhuman.

It’s not a lavish production. Director Des McAnuff and set designer Robert Brill have produced a stripped-down version of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s album-turned-Broadway-show. The stage is equipped with a mettle gallery above, an electric crawl sign to let the audience know where and when the action is taking place and a couple of staircases on wheels. The bare stage is occupied by just enough bodies to sing and dance their way through the score. For a little while this Jesus Christ Superstar might as well be a ’70s hit-song review at Canada’s Wonderland.

From “Heaven on their Minds” through “Everything’s Alright” and “Hosanna,” the actors-with-vocal-coaches bang out the songs. Josh Young as Judas has an obviously superior, and well-trained, voice. All Young’s acting credits are for musicals.

Paul Nolan as Jesus has his hands full matching his talented betrayer.

Rice’s most brilliant invention 40 years ago was Judas as everyman. Judas loves Jesus so long as He remains a simple, country preacher. He can’t quite believe in Jesus or the kingdom He preached if it would slip the bonds of money and might. The tragedy of Judas is his pessimism, his insistence that he must (and we must) have a Jesus who accepts the status quo.

By the time Judas has committed suicide in a truly original and effective turn of stagecraft, McAnuff is ready to add another layer to what we remember from the old, brown, box set of LPs.

Judas comes back in a purple suit to sing “Superstar,” and Jesus in a white suit is thrust out, over the audience. The chorus insists, “Don’t you get me wrong, only want to know,” as Judas asks his questions — “Why’d you choose such a backward time and such a strange land?” Above the audience Jesus answers. We see His lips move as He speaks, He gestures at the audience. But His words are drowned out by drums, electric guitars and the girls in the chorus.

Whether it’s Pilate or Judas or the chorus, throughout this production people demand answers of Jesus but never wait and never listen for the answers. The exception is Mary Magdalene, who at least can admit “I don’t know how to love Him.”

In the end, projected onto the set behind the crucificied Christ, are Jesus’ own words. But the words meld and blend into one another. The clear and distinct message on the electric crawl sign is the story of a woman anointing Jesus with expensive ointment at Bethany (Mat 26: 6-13). Here was a response to Jesus that fit the reality of His life.

This is a Jesus Christ Superstar for the age of earbuds and tweets. Stratford gives us Jesus rendered mute by a generation incapable of listening, with the exception of an anonymous woman with an alabaster jar of ointment.

More info
Statford Shakespeare Festival - Jesus Christ Superstar
Avon Theatre - May 16 to October 29