Or as my phone likes to style it for unknowable reasons completed unrelated to any actions of mine, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR LIVE.
I would understand if you had ignored my previous screaming about Jesus Christ Superstar Live on the basis that I get this wound up every time a live TV musical comes around. You are not wrong. I get seriously hype for live TV musicals. What can I tell you, I love musicals. I have been twenty pounds of joy in a ten pound sack every time a live TV musical has occurred. However, having watched Jesus Christ Superstar Live live and now watching it for a second time on Hulu because I just fucking feel like it, I can report that Jesus Christ Superstar Live isn’t just good for a TV musical. It’s good for a production of Jesus Christ Superstar, period. As in, I will buy this soundtrack. As in, I will ask for the DVD for Christmas.
“But Jenny what are your credentials for determining the quality of a Jesus Christ Superstar production?”
Terrific question, thank you for asking. The 1973 film version of Jesus Christ Superstar catapulted me into puberty with its portrayal of Judas by actor and singer Carl Anderson.
I have seen the show performed live once, but would gladly attend any number of productions of it. I own the original cast recording and the film soundtrack on vinyl as well as a CD of the 1996 West End revival. I suffered through the PBS version of 2001. I complained noisily about the use of the Occupy movement as a framing for the Tim Minchin filmed concert version. I know all the words to all the songs, and I am prone to singing them upon the smallest provocation. If I had to go to a desert island and I could only take one album with me, I’d take the cast recording of Jesus Christ Superstar.
(NB the foregoing is not a representation of my real feelings about fandom. You do not have to have credentials about liking a thing to think a version of that thing is good or bad. All levels of fandom are valid! This is just me copping to being extremely, extremely enthusiastic about Jesus Christ Superstar.)
Anyway, what I want you to understand from all that is that my feelings about Jesus Christ Superstar are at a twenty gazillion of intensity, and that most people in the role of Judas disappoint me for not being Carl Anderson. Brandon Victor Dixon, who took the role in Jesus Christ Superstar, not only didn’t disappoint me, he blew me away. He was not BETTER than Carl Anderson. But he may have been equally as good.
The other major roles in Jesus Christ Superstar are Mary Magdalene and Jesus, and in both cases the main requirement is that the singers have beautiful clear voices in the first case and a mastery of the one absolute banger Jesus gets in this production in the second case. Sara Bareilles has a voice made of silk and honey, and she produces a single crystal teardrop on cue, which, respect to you for that, ma’am. John Legend did a good job on “Gethsemane.” Jesus is a really thankless role in this production — he spends a lot of time complaining to or dunking on his disciples — so any actor who can make me not feel annoyed with the character is a win.
The tremendous wins of this production are that TV musicals — after some growing pains — seem to have learned the valuable lesson that when staging live musical theater events, it’s beneficial to cast in the major roles actors with experience of doing live musical theater events. Norm Lewis, one of the most magnificent singers ever to play Javert in Les Miserables, killed the role of Caiaphas in particular, and his COAT was a WONDER TO BEHOLD. NBC also cleverly had a proper audience for Jesus Christ Superstar Live, and it made a world of difference. The chorus was picking up the crowd’s energy and using it to make this production as hilariously extra as Jesus Christ Superstar is meant to be.
As always, adding diversity to a production made Jesus Christ Superstar Live more interesting. It was terrific to see a chorus with so many actors of color, some of whom weren’t even skinny as a finger. Who knew that could happen? And casting black actors as Jesus and Judas and Caiaphas — but white ones as Herod and Pilate — created an interesting resonance for some of the songs, as Social Sister pointed out while we were watching. Judas’s fundamental argument to Jesus in this play is that he’s become too noisy and too much. It’s an argument for respectability politics, while we know Jesus to be preaching a message of liberation.
And in case I haven’t made it clear, this production is just fun. Everyone on that set is giving it everything they have, from John Legend to each and every member of the chorus to the wandering violin players. Jesus Christ Superstar Live is going to be the bar by which all future live TV musical events are measured, and I don’t anticipate it being cleared any time soon.
Did you watch JCS Live? Did you love it? Did you die of joy? Are you joining my fan club for Brandon Victor Dixon’s arms?