Jesus Christ Superstar @ Broadway Dallas/Fair Park Music Hall
—Wayne Lee Gay
The birth of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice “rock opera” Jesus Christ Superstar truly did rock the music and cultural world in 1971. A 50th anniversary touring production, presented by Broadway Dallas (formerly Dallas Summer Musicals; we’ll stop mentioning that soon!), opened at Fair Park Music Hall last week for a two-week run. This darkly exhilarating version pulls the audience not so much back to the time of Christ, but to the heady psychedelic era of hard rock and revolution.
Is it really “rock”? Is it really “opera”? Yes, and no—or both and neither.
Yes, the instrumentation and beat are rock-like, with rough-edged rock-style vocal mannerisms called for throughout. And, yes, like authentic rock, Jesus Christ Superstar first reached the public as a recorded album. But, in the end, composer Lloyd Webber is a product of thorough classical training, which technically disqualifies the music as rock. The score is almost entirely sung, with no break in the music, in the manner of grand opera—and, one might observe, in the style of many rock or pop concerts. Few rock or pop stars pay such close attention to over-all structure as Lloyd Webber does in his exploitation of key changes, repeated motifs, and irregular meters (5/4 and 7/4 abound, creating rhythms outside the realm of rock but giving an irresistible momentum). Ultimately, Superstar is an opera pretending to be a rock concert for presentation as a Broadway show.
Scenic and costume designer Tom Scutt sets the action in a multi-level, warehouse-like space, with the accompanying rock ensemble and brass band (led by music director Shawn Gough on keyboard) on a raised platform. A giant cross-shaped runway onstage serves as the only other scenery. The players hold guitars and microphones in the manner of rock singers in concert (and with unmistakable phallic implications); sound equipment is clearly visible. The attire is an appropriately ambiguous Medieval-Ancient-Contemporary hybrid: Jesus appears wearing a carpenter’s apron over his jeans. The high priest and temple authorities wear what might or might not be Jewish prayer shawls, but carry the cross-like staffs of Catholic and Christian Orthodox high clergy—which double as microphone props. Lee Curran’s busy, glaring lighting, complete with search lights, heightens the rock-concert aura effectively, and sometimes thrillingly. And choreographer Drew McOnie’s athletic dance sequences capture the manic energy of the hard-rock era.
Aaron LaVigne and Omar Lopez-Cepero take on the equally weighty central roles of Jesus and Judas, respectively; Lopez-Cepero plays Judas as a gruff, big-brother mentor, while LaVigne gives some rock star swagger to Jesus. Both can scream like Jagger, and LaVigne delivers, near the end, a lament in an arrestingly spooky falsetto. Alvin Crawford shows off the best voice in the cast, with his basso profundo rendition of Caiaphas; Paul Lewis Lessard delivers the obligatory high-camp Herod with panache, in a scene that steps right out of an Aubrey Beardsley print. Tyce Green pulls the role of Annas into the spotlight with a memorably cruel tone. Tommy Sherlock is convincing as a disturbing and disturbed as Pilate.
By far the most entrancing performance in this version comes from Jenna Rubaii as Mary Magdalene (misnamed as simply “Mary” in the program book). Rubaii brings an authentic folk-rock quietude to “Everything’s Alright” and “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” arguably, fifty years out, the best songs in the show. Rubaii’s collaboration with Tommy McDowell in “Could We Start Again, Please” was another high point of simplicity and innocence in this dark drama.
The through-composed, oratorio aspects of Jesus Christ Superstar present an abundance of pitfalls and opportunities in staging the work. Director Timothy Sheader, while going full-speed with the concept of a rock concert setting, is equally strong in discovering the human elements and interactions at the heart of Lloyd Webber and Rice’s vision. Implications of an erotic relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene are as old as the Bible; Sheader also gives the viewer who wants to find it hints of something similar between Jesus and Judas (in particular, a quick backrub from Judas before he delivers his infamous kiss).
Jesus Christ Superstar provided a musical exclamation point to the epoch-shattering revolutions of the Sixties: some evangelicals disdained the humanization of Jesus and his cohort, others fretted over the absence of a clear depiction of Resurrection, somehow forgetting that Crucifixion and Resurrection are generally treated separately in centuries of Christian music. Protests outside performance venues in those early days produced invaluable free publicity (people who never went to Broadway shows lined up to see this one); preachers got to be on the six o’clock news (never come between a preacher and a video camera); ticket and album sales soared. Lloyd Webber became one of the wealthiest composers ever, and everyone was happy in the end.
Will future audiences continue to find Superstar appealing as it recedes from “hit” to “classic”? The noisy, thought-provoking show has taken on a patina of nostalgia these days as the hard rock generation turns grey. And while some members of the aggrieved branch of Christianity still might pretend shock that librettist Rice followed a few unorthodox side roads, the script is practically an advertisement for at least one chapter of the traditional narrative of Christianity.
Intentionally or not, Lloyd Webber and Rice hit a deep nerve here. Current scholarly consensus tells us the itinerant rabbi and faith-healer around whom the story revolves really did exist. For two millennia, western civilization and Christianity in particular has grappled with the foundational question Jesus Christ Superstar poses in its title song: “Who are you? What did you sacrifice?”
WHEN: Through April 17th
WHERE: Fair Park Music Hall
WEB: broadwaydallas.org
