What's the buzz? [Updates]

There are a couple of updates down at the bottom of the post.

Did you watch NBC's live staging of "Jesus Christ Superstar" on Easter evening?

There was a lot to really like.  And some things that left me wanting something more, or different.





Perhaps we should start by defining just what it is that NBC has been up to, and what was telecast yesterday.  NBC, to its great credit, for the last few years has been telecasting original, made-for-television productions of notable already-established Broadway musicals, including The Sound of Music (pretty good), Peter Pan (okay), Hairspray (saw only the ending, which was kind of a train wreck) and The Wiz (missed it).  These telecasts are neither full-blown original films based on Broadway musicals (think Chicago, or Hairspray - the Nikki Blonsky version), nor are they simply the product of pointing a camera at a stage production in a live theater (many examples on YouTube).  Rather, these are made-for-television revival productions.  As a point of comparison, consider the Live from Lincoln Center series that runs on PBS each fall.  Like the PBS series, these NBC productions try to capture the look and feel, and some of the risks, of a live theater production.  That means that the filmmaker's voluminous bag of special-effects tricks stays locked in storage; whatever visual "pop" these productions bring to the small screen are those that are available to the stage producer: lighting, sets, costumes, hair styles, makeup and, not least, beautiful people.

The risks include some of those that come with reviving or remaking an already-well-known work: how will this director and this particular cast do with material that had been made successful by another director and cast, perhaps a generation or more earlier?   To put it in the context of last night's Jesus Christ Superstar telecast: how is John Legend in the role of Jesus?  Or Sara Bareilles in the role of Mary Magdalene?   Neither has the luxury of creating his/her role from scratch; both are stepping into shoes that others already have worn pretty well, and making them fit for their particular sets of gifts and skills.

Then, too, with revivals, there is always this risk: how well does material that was written in and for a different time hold up in our time?  The premise, the characters, the plot, the dialogue, the musical numbers: there are a lot of ways that something that was fresh in 1940 or 1960 or 1980 can seem awfully dated today.  For a revival, the temptation always is there to apply foundation over the age spots and wrinkles, or even undergo a facelift and tummy tuck, in order to make what otherwise would be past its prime seem fresh and relevant today.

Then there is this particular work of theater.  The traditional way of things for a stage musical is: the show goes into production on stage, and then an original (or revival) cast recording is made of the stage production.  Later, a film might be made of it.  But the history of Jesus Christ Superstar is a little out of order: it was first recorded as a rock album in 1969, with commercial release in 1970, and only after that was it produced on the stage.  By the time it made its Broadway debut in October 1971, the album already had topped the charts internationally for a number of weeks the previous year, and had sold hundreds of thousands of copies in the US. Its original Broadway run was over 700 performances, which was pretty respectable but not in the ranks of all-time smash hits.  It was also produced as a film in 1973, which I haven't watched end to end, but my impression is that it is more well-loved by critics than the viewing public.  So even though I've seen it on stage several times and have seen parts of the film, my belief is that the public's primary impression of the work is the same as mine: we learned it by listening to the original recording.

And what a recording that was.  It's worth noting that, when Andrew Lloyd Webber and the brilliant Tim Rice wrote the material in the late 1960s, Broadway musicals were still very much situated in the tradition of works by Rodgers and Hammerstein, George and Ira Gershwin and Cole Porter a generation or more previously.  The year Jesus Christ Superstar was in the recording studio,1969, the Tony Award for Best Musical went to 1776; other Best Musical winners during that decade included Bye Bye Birdie, Fiddler on the Roof, Hello Dolly, Man of La Mancha and Caberet.  While it would be easy to underestimate how musically interesting all of these scores are, and while Birdie incorporated some Elvis-y rock and roll, by and large these works have traditional orchestrations of traditionally constructed musical numbers. 

Jesus Christ Superstar was nearly a different category altogether, something that Webber and Rice tried to make clear by calling their work a rock opera rather than a musical.  The orchestration had strings, brass and woodwinds, but its foundation was a rock band.  Wikipedia notes that the rhythm section of the band on the original recording consisted of the group that backed Joe Cocker.  And while there is a lot of musical interest in the orchestrations from Webber, who frankly was a lot more adventerous and intriguing in this early work than he later became, it was the rock and roll ethos, accentuated by Rice's subversive and irreverent (yet insightful and singable) lyrics, that were the work's real signature.  It sounded different than a Broadway show, yet it was highly theatrical.  As a contribution to the tradition of musical theater, it was, in my estimation, great, both as a ground-breaker and on its own merits.

Is it still a great score?  Based on yesterday's NBC performance, which was billed as "live in concert" (much like the PBS Live from Lincoln Center productions), I think we can say unequivocally that it is.  If I'm not mistaken, the producers for this production included Webber and Rice, and so presumably, had they wished to do a major rewrite for this day and age, they would have done so.  I heard a line here and and a verse there that strayed from the original cast recording, including an entire song for Mary Magdalene that I don't recall hearing before (and which, truth be told, I didn't love), but by and large, this performance was musically faithful to the original.  (When I mentioned at the top of this post that I thought that NBC deserves a lot of credit for mounting these telecasts, one of the reasons is this sense of fidelity, which seems to have run through their productions; in my view, it shows tremendous respect for original theatrical achievements.)  Last night's performance sounded great.  And even though there is a sort of '60's feel to some of the rock numbers, '60's rock is not a bad thing; good '60's rock is good, period.  This production also had various guitarists and string players playing and running about on stage, and there was an infectious joy among the instrumentalists playing this music - and how could there not be?  If you're a guitarist and you don't enjoy playing some of those riffs, you're in the wrong business.  I only wished that the flutists would also have been featured on camera; the score has some really memorable flute parts.

Vocally, too, the ensemble was very good - stronger than that of the original cast, which was pretty good but also a little uneven here and there.  The ensemble singing was one of this production's strengths.

As for the leading roles: most of them were sung pretty well.  But there were times, and they weren't infrequent, where I found myself wishing for leads who were vocally stronger.  The producers followed a hallowed playbook in hiring big-name stars from more mainstream entertainment categories for some of the leading and featured roles: Legend as Jesus, Bareilles as Mary Magdalene, and Alice Cooper, of all people, as King Herod.  I'm sure that, commercially, these casting decisions were a great move; the telecast seems to have been last night's ratings winner, and I don't doubt that download transactions (and however else music is sold these days) will be brisk.

And although I'm not an enthusiastic fan of either Legend or Bareilles, I'm not a detractor, either;  I respect and admire both of them, and wouldn't turn either of them off when they're doing their own songs.  And both were pretty good in these musical-theater roles.  But whether Legend was saving himself vocally, or whether he just doesn't have a lot of screaming rock and roll chops, I wanted more from him.  Especially so on his big solo number, which in the spirit of (rock) opera we might call his signature aria, Gethsemane.  Ian Gillan (of Deep Purple) sang the role on the original recording, and his studio performance was a rock-anthem tour de force.  I felt that Legend left something on the table.  Legend's acting also was not of the highest caliber, although in his defense, we might note that playing Jesus during his Passion would be a challenge for anyone, and Legend doesn't really claim to be an actor.  These criticisms aside, Legend can sing, and for the most part he acquitted himself well.

I felt somewhat the same about Bareilles.  Her two big numbers, Everything's Alright and I Don't Know How to Love Him, surely are among the most-loved songs from the show  And she was fine on them.  But her performance highlighted to me just how good Yvonne Elliman was in the original recording; Elliman seemed more passionately committed than Bareilles came across to me last night.

As for Alice Cooper: he played himself, mostly managing not to smirk.  The live audience loved him.  I have to say, I wasn't overly charmed, and he didn't sing his song particularly well.

So much for the pop stars.  Brandon Victor Dixon, who starred in Hamilton on Broadway, was nothing short of sensational as Judas Iscariot - his performance was the best thing about this production, and it wasn't really that close.  He's got the voice for that angst-filled role, the best I've heard it sung.  His portrayal of Judas was terrific.  And when it comes to stage presence and movement, he outclassed the rest of the field. 

Ben Daniels as Pontius Pilate was pretty strong in the role as an actor, and he sang it well - just not as well as Barry Dennen had in the original.

Norm Lewis was, for the most part, in excellent voice as Caiaphas, although he seemed to be having trouble with the lower register, which surprised me, as I think of him as a baritone.

Annas was played by an actor named Jin Ha.  He was excellent.

Peter was played by Jason Tam.  Not bad.

The production had a sort of anarchic feel to it that was a bit over the top but which I thought worked pretty well.

Definitely worth watching if you're so inclined.

UPDATE 4/3/2018: H/t to Jim McCrea for directing attention to this Washington Post article on the critical and popular reception of the NBC telecast, and of the rock opera more generally.  The author's basic take: critics loved it; Christian audience members hated it.    It frosts me a little bit that Evangelical views often are presented in mainstream media in an undifferentiated fashion as Christian views, as though Christianity is monolithic.  I frequently don't wish to be included under the umbrella of what Evangelical spokespersons like and dislike, and this is one of those times.  In fairness to reporters, Evangelical pastors and leaders tend to be a good deal more media-savvy than, say, leaders of Catholicism and Orthodoxy (who actually represent something like 3/4 of the world's Christians).

FWIW, I first encountered Jesus Christ Superstar sometime in the mid 1970s, when I was a game but talentless high school performer - sort of like Glee, except without the ability to sing, dance or act - and some Evangelical fellow teen cast members from some community production or other waxed enthusiastic about the recording.  Whatever theological issues the show raised, apparently were lost on them and their youth-group leader.  They saw the tunes as a rock and roll window into the life and Passion of Jesus.  In other words, it didn't precipitate a faith crisis for them; it reinforced their budding faith.  That was also my personal experience, and I believe the experience of most/all of the folks with whom I've shared the soundtrack over the years.

The WaPo article also raises the interesting question, 'Why was this shown on Easter, inasmuch as it omits the Resurrection?'  The inference seems to be that Good Friday would be theologically more appropriate.  The author suggests that "It’s difficult to expect that a secular studio such as NBC would understand the importance of this detail, but it was not unnoticed by some religious viewers.".  I don't claim to understand the details of how NBC makes its programming decisions, but I can state with great certainty that the chairman of NBC Entertainment, Robert Greenblatt, would understand the details very well, because he attended the same Catholic high school I did.  He was a year ahead of me, and I met him through those theatrical activities.  He was so on a different level than most of the rest of us already - brilliant, driven, saw things and possibilities that the rest of us didn't.

It's worth considering that Good Friday also was the beginning of Passover.  I'm not aware that Jesus Christ Superstar is particularly toxic among Jews, but naturally anything with the whiff of a passion play calls for great sensitivity.

ANOTHER UPDATE 4/3/2018: This NY Times story from a few days before the telecast asks Legend, Dixon, Bareilles and Cooper for their views of religion, the show and their character.  I thought all four of them were pretty thought-provoking.  Cooper's surprised me.  Actors frequently aren't very interesting (although more so than ex-jocks - I still don't understand why networks put them in the announcer's booth), but I thought these were pretty interesting backgrounds and takes.  All of them are glimpses into an artist's journey of faith.