As a resident JCS expert for many years, you've come to the right place if you want to hear me pontificate on the show. Now the first thing you're doing wrong is asking about the bizarre versions that people have enjoyed. This is opening the door for a production that is setting out to be different from everything else ever done with the show for the sake of being different.
Imaginative, that one's more on the right track. And speaking as someone who's been/done/seen tons of variations, the most inventive way to do this show is to set it in its original period. People for years have seized on one lyric in "Superstar" (namely, "If you'd come today...") and run with it as a premise to explore the effect of Christ on a modern world. That's not what the show is about; the show is about the last seven days in the life of Christ as seen from the POV of Judas, and that line in that song is from a Judas who is trying to explore why Jesus had such an effect on the ancient world in spite of the lack of "mass communication."
Drawing connections to the modern world is not done by setting it in the modern world. The connections are made by the use of an anachronistic score written in the earthiest, most democratic, most populist language of all -- rock and roll. The use of a modern rock score and intentionally slangy, unpoetic lyrics (they sure didn't speak King James English in Israel, 4 B.C.) is what makes the story accessible to modern audiences and puts flesh and blood back on the cardboard characters of religion.
With this in mind, my advice to you is: do it period, the soldiers are soldiers. The stamp is put on it with the performances. For Christ's sake don't imitate Steve Balsamo and the new breed; go back to Ted Neeley and Carl Anderson's performances, or even further to Ian Gillan and Murray Head. That's how that score is supposed to be sung. Too often this rock opera has had more emphasis put on the operatic part of it lately. This show is rock and roll, so sing it like rock and roll.
As for Herod, this is a particular sticking point with me. IMHO, they've been getting it wrong since 1971, when Tom O'Horgan initially staged the piece at the Mark Hellinger. Herod's number is often played as silly, comic relief in most productions, and inexplicably making Herod gay! (Apparently, for some folks, Herod's decadence in the Bible is easily expressed by homosexuality because we all know how decadent those gays are!) But the truth is that there is far more substance in this material than is usually apparent. For this great philosopher and political leader (Jesus) to be treated so disrespectfully, so grotesquely (by Herod) should be deeply upsetting, particularly with the extra baggage of two thousand years of Christian culture we all have. And for crying out loud, Herod wasn't gay! Even Tim Rice described Herod as "a bit of a debauched bloke, who sat around smoking and drinking all the time with a lot of women around him."
That's not saying don't make the number ridiculous, but don't skirt the scary, dangerous, disturbing side either. This is often helped by a change in arrangement; drop the British music hall vaudeville **** and do it as a 1950s rock number in 6/8 like the 1994 recording
JCS: A Resurrection; not only is it stronger dramatically, it also fits better into the score.
Hope I helped!
"There is no problem so big that it cannot be run away from."
~ Charles M. Schulz
Updated On: 6/20/10 at 06:38 PM
