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music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, book and lyrics by Tim Rice, directed by Des McAnuff

Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Avon Theatre, Stratford

June 3-November 6, 2011

“Ho-sanna!”

Stratford’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar is a spectacular success.  Flawless cast, slick direction and inventive design bring the show as close to perfection as humanly possible.  It may be hard to believe but the songs are actually better sung than on the classic 1970 album.

Though Superstar is often referred to as a rock opera it is really more of a rock oratorio since song succeeds song with no spoken dialogue and virtually no sung sung dialogue to link the songs.  The challenge is to find and project the drama in this succession of songs so that the work feels like more than a stage oratorio.  Since the work itself is short at only two hours including a 20-minute intermission and since the songs themselves by today’s standards are also quite short, a director has to make his dramatic points quickly and decisively.  That is exactly what Des McAnuff, fully in his element in rock musicals, is able to do so masterfully.  He carries the narrative of the last week of Jesus‘ life forward through the reactions of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Judas to each other even when they are not singing.  He maintains a tight focus on Judas, who in fact is the central tragic figure, by having him present in more scenes than is usual.  Most significantly, he has Judas present and and hidden on a balcony during Mary’s famous song “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” agonizing over his own unrequited love.  When he later takes the sleeping Jesus in his arms, covers him and kisses him, McAnuff makes clear that Judas‘ later betrayal of Jesus arises from a complex mixture of political and private motives.  His infamous kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane thus takes on an meaning that is tragic for both characters.

The cast is top-notch at every level.  McAnuff began the evening on opening night by explaining that Paul Nolan, who plays Jesus, was suffering from a bronchial infection, but who sing the part anyway.  From his other performances, as Tony in Stratford’s West Side Story of 2009 or as Slim in Oklahoma! of 2007, we know he has a sweet, clear tenor that perfect for the role.  If on opening night he sounded rather more like Bryan Adams, it didn’t matter since the added grit seemed somehow appropriate to Jesus‘ suffering.  Still, I am very anxious to see him again when he has recovered.  If we didn’t already know it from West Side Story, Nolan has a commanding stage presence that draws us to his character in both power and pain.

As Mary Magdalene, Chilina Kennedy is a sympathetic presence throughout.  Her renditions of “Everything’s Alright” and especially “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” completely efface memories of Yvonne Elliman on the original album since Kennedy has a stronger, richer voice and uses a careful shaping of vocal line rather than pop artist tricks to bring out the sincerity of what she sings. 

The real star of the show, and controversially so for some Christians, is Judas Iscariot.  Josh Young, who was so charismatic as Che in last year’s Evita, is simply fantastic in the role.  His vocal prowess allows him to communicate fully the intensity and emotion of every song.  Given McAnuff’s vision of the character, his Judas is riven by multiple conflicts as lover and patriot and, most difficult of all, as a tool in God’s plan to be used and discarded.  The depth he brings to the role helps  underline the fact that despite its youth-oriented music, Superstar does not avoid the hard questions that Judas’ actions pose concerning free will and determinism.  Even when Judas appears after death as a modern-day figure for the song “Superstar”, Young brings a note of anguish to refrain “I want to know”.

To have Brent Carver play Pontius Pilate is luxury casting.  It’s great to see Carver bring his natural emotion to a role that is so different from ones he’s played before.  Outwardly his Pilate seems studied but steely.  Inwardly he stuck to the core by the combination of determination and helplessness in the man he’s meant to condemn.  Carver makes “Pilate’s Dream” sound as beautiful as a Jacques Brel ballad.  He even makes us sympathize with Pilate’s shift from empathy to exasperation with Jesus‘ during his trial since we know that Pilate, as puppet of Rome, is not free to act according to his will.  Though he makes only one appearance, Bruce Dow stops the show as a sybaritic Nero-like King Herod, who conveys all the self-congratulatory mockery of “Herod’s Song”.  Opera singer Marcus Nance brings resonance and menace to the seemingly bottomless low notes of Caiaphas.

At first glance Robert Brill’s high-tech, two-level U-shaped metal set mounted with visible lighting instruments looks unpromising.  A proscenium-sized curtain of metal slats behind it is used for Sean Nieuwenhuis’s projections and the scrolling ticker across its three sides in front sets the day and place of the action.  As it turns out the clean lines and open nature of the set only serve to highlight the people who inhabit it and McAnuff uses the twin metal staircases that can attach to it in various ways so creatively that the set’s virtues soon become clear.  The countdown from 2011 to 33 ad, suggests a continuum in design between ancient and modern.  And so it is.  Paul Tazewell has created costumes that clever blend a modern paramilitary look with timeless Middle Eastern accents for Caiaphas and his councillors versus a cross between street punk and hippie wear for the common people and Apostles.  Pilate wears a purple velvet suit while Herod in is a blood-red robe with laurel leaf coronet to show his allegiance to Rome.  His court and the Temple are peopled by leather boys and spangled, mini-skirted harlots.  Most importantly, McAnuff uses the set and costumes only to enhance, not overwhelm, the human drama at the centre of the story. 

Lisa Shriver has created a distinctive choreography for the show that modifies standard Broadway dance with angular postures and and acrobatics borrowed from streetdance.  Nieuwenhuis’s projections are most effective when the sets scenes with a sunset or solitary tree but rather distracting when they magnify onstage movements in silhouette onto the upstage screen of slats since they then move our gaze away from the actors before us.  Yet, what Nieuwenhuis and lighting designer Howell Binkley achieve after Jesus dies upon the cross, namely the generation of the Gospels streaming across the back curtain and the ticker, is truly magical and inspired.  Brill’s idea for the crucifixion itself, combining a hydraulic platform and a flown cross, brilliantly becomes a metaphor for the meeting of heaven and earth. 

Jesus Christ Superstar is without question the must-see show of the summer.  It would surprise no one if it were to travel to Broadway.  If it did so you could find no cast finer than the one in Stratford.  Seeing is believing. 

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Paul Nolan as Jesus.  ©2011 David Hou.

For Tickets, visit www.stratfordfestival.ca.