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Thursday August 11, 2016
Jesus Christ Superstar
Apparently it's 45 years since this musical first appeared, and as I'm pretty sure I never saw it, either then, or at any point since - I thought it was time... In addition, I think it's a long time since I was at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre*, so I got tickets for the matinee.
We were lucky with the weather - always a risk and worth mentioning, even though the cast is always exceedingly gung ho about performing in the rain, and shaming the the audience into staying to watch. As it was, before the show we sat, albeit in our coats, in pleasant sunshine, eating our sandwiches - but once we got to our seats (on the "sunny side"), if anything, it turned out to be rather too hot, in full-on blazing sunshine - I never though to pack sun screen!
The show itself, as reviewers have agreed, was a triumph, and avoided being dated despite the music itself being very much of its time, and overly familiar to all. The one or two points that the then young writers were trying to make were still clearly brought out - both Jesus and Judas being suitably conflicted - and there was delightful emulated Da Vinci tableau of the Last Supper. I think they were valid in making the arrest and crucifixion scenes unpleasantly violent - Rob commented that he had no memory of the original being quite such a violent musical... As a final point - the show is clearly a "spectacular" with a lot of light and flame effects which I think would have been (even) more impressive in a dark evening performance than a matinee - seeing it all in blazing sunshine occasionally made the costumes and effects look very slightly tawdry - but even then it added a little to the possible realism of being in a hot dry middle Eastern setting.
[* From memory I think the last time I went must have been 1992 to see As You Like It when I remember it being chilly with a little rain - and we sat two rows behind Esther Ransom. I also have a memory of the seating being a lot more rudimentary but am concluding this might be a false memory, though we definitely took cushions...]
Posted by Christina at 3:36 PM. Category: Art and Culture
