Ontario's Stratford Shakespeare Festival's opening week presented only five productions this year, possibly because all five were big blockbusters. The final opening of the week was Artistic Director Des McAnuff's re-creation [may I call it a "resurrection"?] of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar.
I remember stopping my car to park and listen to the extraordinary concept album of "Superstar" on Public Radio 40 years ago, entranced with its daring mixture of rock music and "flower-child" pop culture applied to the Passion of Christ: "Jesus Christ/Superstar/Do you think you're what they say you are?" After seeing a tired remnant of the Broadway show and then an even worse touring version, I was convinced that -- unlike Evita this even more thrilling concept album had not been transformed into an effective stage musical. I honestly don't know whether there has been a worthy stage version; I certainly didn't think much of the movie. But I believed that the inspiring recorded composition had deteriorated into a violent, ugly crucifixion-story with a mocked, weak Christ, 'lightened' by a ridiculously comic and effeminate Herod, and 'enlivened' by a contrasting super-macho Judas.
Well, I don't know how unique Stratford's version is, but Des McAnuff has made Superstar into a noble, deeply moving experience. How religiously one wants to take it is left open, but its humanity is uplifting and yet very entertaining, and its theatricality is overwhelming without excess. The ugly undertone of Herod's satirical song is emphasized: Bruce Dow manages a virtuosic Herod who makes us laugh bitterly as he is clearly disgusted with the pretenses underlying his role as judge.
Tim Rice had set up the relationships as a kind of "love triangle" between Judas, Jesus, and Mary Magdalene, with Judas initially an anti-crowd critic of Jesus' overreaching, very similar to Che's role in Rice and Lloyd Webber's Evita, and Magdalene as the comforting supporter both yearning for but seeming to reject salvation. For the ending whipping and crucifixion, the libretto brings Judas back into the fold to perform his betrayal like a pre-ordained ritual.
This cast is splendid. Chilina Kennedy sings more than impressively and makes Mary Magdalene entirely sympathetic. Josh Young's super-intense Judas, gloriously sung, threatens to unbalance the story by stealing its star-designation, but he manfully settles for supporting it. Both have solo versions of the odd, affecting song, "I Don't Know How to Love Him." And with a quiet, much understated soulful manner punctuated and given stature by occasional supersonic high notes, Paul Nolan's Jesus is never less than human but knows how to drop a suggestion of being more than that. All the singing is remarkably fine, and Brent Carver seems to quietly and modestly do more with Pontius Pilate's role than Rice and Lloyd Webber did. Musical Director Rick Fox seems to be more in his element with this music, which sounds like a major rock concert. The designs seem sometimes intimate, sometimes epic, but do not call attention to themselves, though I can't really fault Howell Binkley's lighting design which often does. And director Des McAnuff, who says that he "discovered" in the text that Rice, "a great lyricist," had created "an outstanding work of drama," certainly proves that point here.
