Review: In ‘Jesus Christ Superstar,’ an Old Story for (Yet Another) New Millennium (original) (raw)
Television|Review: In ‘Jesus Christ Superstar,’ an Old Story for (Yet Another) New Millennium
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John Legend as Jesus in “Jesus Christ Superstar” live in concert.Credit...Eric Liebowitz/NBC
- April 2, 2018
A conceptual and artistic triumph, NBC’s live telecast of “Jesus Christ Superstar” on Easter Sunday may have finally justified the recent live musical fad on network TV. Some technical flubs and one mixed-bag lead performance aside, the production was genuinely thrilling, taking chances with the staging of a classic but controversial Broadway show, much more daring than previous live musical broadcasts like “The Sound of Music” or “Peter Pan.”
With the R&B hitmaker John Legend playing Jesus Christ, Sara Bareilles as Mary Magdalene and Brandon Victor Dixon as Judas Iscariot, NBC’s “Superstar” didn’t lack for talent or star power, drawn as it was from the worlds of pop and theater. The real masterstroke, though, was the decision to perform live before a large audience at the Marcy Avenue Armory in Brooklyn. The energy of the crowd clearly goosed the cast, counteracting the over-prepared stodginess that hampers so many of these specials. And the crowd’s passionate whooping underscored one of the musical’s central themes: the dangers of uncritical celebrity worship.
(The show averaged 9.4 million viewers, according to The Hollywood Reporter, putting it ahead of all other original telecasts for the night — including CBS’s “60 Minutes” and ABC’s “American Idol.”)
Written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, “Jesus Christ Superstar” has long held something of a surprise place in the modern theatrical canon. Debuting in 1970 as a rock opera album, it made the leap to Broadway in 1971 and was nominated for five Tonys — winning none. The 1973 movie adaptation by the director Norman Jewison was a box-office hit, but it is rarely touted as one of its era’s great films.
[John Legend, Sara Bareilles and their co-stars on “Superstar.”]
Told largely from Judas’s point-of-view, the story closely follows biblical accounts of Christ’s arrest and crucifixion in Jerusalem, while adding substantial criticism of Jesus’s followers; his communion with disreputable people; and his open, dangerous antagonism of both the Jewish and the Roman authorities. The musical then pushes back against its own skepticism, depicting the powers-that-be as corrupt, cynical and manipulative, exploiting the anxieties of Judas and the other apostles.
In the years immediately after its premiere, the musical raised eyebrows and ire with its decidedly nontraditional spin on Christ’s last days. By considering Jesus more as a cultural phenomenon than as a divine figure, and by exhibiting as much sympathy for Judas as for the man he betrayed, Mr. Webber and Mr. Rice delivered an interpretation of the Passion Play as radical in its way as director Martin Scorsese’s much-protested film “The Last Temptation of Christ” did in 1988.
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