By Rachele Stoops
Jesus Christ Superstar, The Lied Center for Performing Arts, Thursday, February 1, 2024
I don’t remember the first time my mom told me about the movie, Jesus Christ Superstar, or when I heard the music for the first time. It was probably in the womb. The movie came out in 1973, just a couple of years before my parents met, married, and had me.
My mom loved the movie and the soundtrack, and listening to her talk about it helped me connect just a tiny bit with the teenage girl my mom was, before she was my mom.
As a preteen, the movie gave me shivers of vicarious rebellion. I grew up in church; my dad graduated from seminary and was ordained when I was ten, and he served at three different churches in three different states in my middle and high school years. This version, the Jesus Christ Superstar interpretation of the Bible story, was barely appropriate!
It’s hard to believe that the rock opera’s debut – and the movie – made their marks more than fifty years ago, but this weekend’s performances at the Lied Center for Performing Arts are part of the 50th anniversary tour production.
Experiencing this show almost thirty years after the last time I saw it live (a mid-1990s tour featuring Ted Neeley and Carl Anderson, the actors who played Jesus and Judas in the film) was both completely familiar and strangely unique. When the lights went down, the musicians, perched in a double decker set piece on stage left, struck the first chords of the overture, and I couldn’t decide whether to cry or to bubble over with laughter.
The music is passionate and unmistakable right from the beginning, with the recognizable 1970s sound that reminds the audience where it came from.
A single dancer, credited in the program as Mob Leader (Reece Spencer), begins by moving around the stage, the intensity of her dance drawing the rest of the ensemble down the aisles of the audience and onto the stage to join her, one by one. This pattern persists throughout the performance, with Spencer beginning a routine and the ensemble members entering the dance individually until they’re moving together. At times it seems like Spencer is literally interpreting the story with her body. She’s fully engaged, and matched in vehemence when Elvie Ellis as Judas begins to sing. Judas begs an offstage Jesus to acknowledge how far the movement has gone; too far, according to Judas.
The audience is immediately thrust into the center of the Bible story: not the Silent Night of Jesus’ birth, and not even the beginning of his ministry, when he began preaching and healing, bringing along a ragtag gang of men.
This interpretation begins just a few pages from the end, when Jesus’ followers are growing in number, and stories of his miracles and nontraditional interpretation of the Law are reaching the religious leaders. Judas knows that things are about to crash and burn, and he thinks he has to stop it.
This production doesn’t update the original dated aspects like other tours have done. The costumes are sort of dystopian neutrals; comfortable enough to dance in, in muted colors. This makes Herod’s (Alec Diem) ensemble even more breathtaking. I won’t spoil it for you; you’ll know it when you see it.
The set is minimalist and simple, with crosses cleverly added in and some surprising technical elements that add to the overall aesthetic.
Ellis’ Judas ripped my heart out. His voice is perfect in a difficult role, and I had to remind myself to keep breathing when he poured out his fear and frustration, railing against the man he’d come to love and trust, but fighting mostly with himself.
The contrast between Judas and Jesus (played by Jack Hopewell) is almost startling. Jesus, now three years in and nearing the end, is worn down. He moves slowly through his people, his back slightly bent, and can’t seem to rest easily. The actor is slight, dressed in a white hoodie and tan skinny jeans, with a man bun and a beard. He has an acoustic guitar slung around his back, and he’s immediately recognizable as Jesus. Hopewell’s voice is pure, and he has the specific falsetto range that this role requires. At times I wanted more from Hopewell’s Jesus: more emotion, more righteous anger, but I finally realized that this Jesus was tired. He pulled out his startling screams when they were necessary, but in between, there was resignation.
Mary Magdalene is played by Jaden Dominique, and as the only named woman in the show, she provides comfort and physical care for Jesus. Her songs are nearly lullabies, as she urges Jesus to relax, since ‘everything’s all right’. This story pulls the ‘Mary Magdalene was a sex worker’ myth from Pope Gregory I (she wasn’t), which gives Judas something else to throw at Jesus, but Jesus shuts it down, adding to Judas’ frustration.
I was utterly spellbound by this production, but there were a few things missing. Most noticeably, the sound didn’t fill the space the way I wanted it to. The characters used handheld microphones and stands (the stands were repurposed as props throughout the show), and I don’t know if those microphones were providing the sound, or if the actors were wearing mics that actually picked up the sound.
Although the production as a whole was absolutely gorgeous, I did wish for a little more range from Hopewell (Jesus) and Dominique (Mary).
I also realized, now that I’m a little older, that not everyone knows the whole story of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, and the show doesn’t explain it all. If you learned about Palm Sunday and Good Friday and Easter in Sunday school, you’ll be fine, but if you didn’t, you may want to Google it first.
I spend my days explaining things to teenagers by comparing them to other things, and boy could I discourse on the symbolism and director’s vision of this production. The beauty of Jesus Christ Superstar, though, isn’t in hidden meanings or even the reflection of our humanness. The beauty is the raw emotion and relationship, and the voices that seem to have come from heaven itself.
If you go: Jesus Christ Superstar is performing at the Lied Center for Performing Arts; remaining shows are February 2nd at 7:30 pm, February 3rd at 2:00 pm and 7:30 pm, and February 3rd at 1:30 pm. The show runs 96 minutes with no intermission, and is most appropriate for audience members over 13. Tickets at https://www.liedcenter.org.
Rachele Stoops teaches English and directs the theatre program at Standing Bear High School in Lincoln. In her free time, she likes to bake, run her jewelry side hustle (cecilcaboose.com), and listen to murder podcasts. Rachele has four grown up kids, a spoiled chihuahua, a very patient husband, and a large sleep debt.
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