kitewithfish (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kitewithfish) wrote2020-04-14 01:43 pm
kitewithfish) wrote2020-04-14 01:43 pm
Easter and Holy Week in Review - or Jesus Christ was kind of a Superstar
Holy Week was not my most pious.
Maundy Thurday, by far the most social event of the week, was a video conferenced dinner with the junior pastor delivering a sermon. It was very clearly a sermon adapted from a past year, when she was at a Methodist parish, and it was neither interesting nor well-delivered nor well-researched. She's a nice person and extremely skilled at her actual job in the parish, but man, she cannot fucking preach.
My favorite service, the Great Vigil of Easter, wasn't offered by my church this year, and I got to Easter Eve with so little energy left that I just took the night to watch old Poirot films and rest.
Easter services streaming with the Cathedral were actually lovely, and I got to let a friend know that her program had gotten a shout out in the sermon from the actual factual bishop that she'd had no idea was there.
I video chatted with friends and family and had lots of chances to check in with everyone.
Jesus Christ, Superstar, or how I spent my Good Friday
What was a surprisingly successful addition to Good Friday was to watch the filmed adaptation of Jesus Christ, Superstar (1973), and then to watch the 2012 stage adaptation (which was made available on Youtube due to the whole covid19 situation) - my dear friend and I had a book club like discussion of the adaptations and what worked and what didn't.
The 1973 film adaptation is very, very solid. Carl Anderson's Judas is tortured and compelling and bold, and so clearly absolute adores Jesus that it's honestly hard to not read it as romance. Also, the film production has the luxury of giving space and heft to some elements of the musical that are left sort of blank. The moment of decision where Judas decided to give Jesus to the council, for one, has a truly stunning sequence with Carl Anderson fleeing form a line of advancing tanks -an excellent cinematic addition with no song behind it. It solidifies the fears that he sings about earlier, that their movement's increasing radical turn will expose them to institutional violence. And while I do *not* love the image of a Black man playing Judas committing suicide by hanging himself, there's a heft to the fears of institutional violence when voiced by a Black actor that lends me a lot more sympathy to Judas's perspective than those same lines sung by Tim Minchin.
The 2012 stage adaptation was not a proper musical, really, it was an arena show, and it suffered from stunt casting and a general feeling of being rushed. Tim Minchin is not a strong enough singer for musical theater, and he's not a strong enough actor to pull off the emotional struggles of the lead role of Judas. The same moment of decision, where Judas chooses to betray Jesus, was portrayed with Tim Minchin being harassed by a street electric guitarist - his pleas to be saved from damnation for his actions afterwards felt super, super fake. He also had no chemistry with that Jesus.
As well not giving the actors room to emotionally hit their emotional highs and lows, the 2012 adaptation had some poorly thought out stuff. Since everyone in the cast was English, the distinctions of the 1973 show, that followers of Jesus speak with American accents while Pilate spoke with a clear English RP accent, was lost. That mattered.
Also, weirdly, the cast of the 2012 production were nearly uniformly white? I can't figure out why - they were talking about throwing over society and were clearly based on the Occupy movement and the setting was, as far as I could tell, an city that was vaguely London, so there's no reason why they should have been any less multiracial than the 1973 American adaptation. And yet, they chose a nearly completely white cast for some reason - the statement behind it wasn't clear?
I am probably going to have some more thoughts about this whole thing, but watching the 2012 version has really solidified the feelings I had that the 1973 version was a complete piece and it's the best way to introduce people to a show that is only questionably good.
ETA: I was reminded that a friend sent me this great little summary of the Judases in various JCS productions - https://ghostcat3000.tumblr.com/post/615220304413900800/h0lyhandgrenade-in-case-you-didnt-know-im-a
Maundy Thurday, by far the most social event of the week, was a video conferenced dinner with the junior pastor delivering a sermon. It was very clearly a sermon adapted from a past year, when she was at a Methodist parish, and it was neither interesting nor well-delivered nor well-researched. She's a nice person and extremely skilled at her actual job in the parish, but man, she cannot fucking preach.
My favorite service, the Great Vigil of Easter, wasn't offered by my church this year, and I got to Easter Eve with so little energy left that I just took the night to watch old Poirot films and rest.
Easter services streaming with the Cathedral were actually lovely, and I got to let a friend know that her program had gotten a shout out in the sermon from the actual factual bishop that she'd had no idea was there.
I video chatted with friends and family and had lots of chances to check in with everyone.
Jesus Christ, Superstar, or how I spent my Good Friday
What was a surprisingly successful addition to Good Friday was to watch the filmed adaptation of Jesus Christ, Superstar (1973), and then to watch the 2012 stage adaptation (which was made available on Youtube due to the whole covid19 situation) - my dear friend and I had a book club like discussion of the adaptations and what worked and what didn't.
The 1973 film adaptation is very, very solid. Carl Anderson's Judas is tortured and compelling and bold, and so clearly absolute adores Jesus that it's honestly hard to not read it as romance. Also, the film production has the luxury of giving space and heft to some elements of the musical that are left sort of blank. The moment of decision where Judas decided to give Jesus to the council, for one, has a truly stunning sequence with Carl Anderson fleeing form a line of advancing tanks -an excellent cinematic addition with no song behind it. It solidifies the fears that he sings about earlier, that their movement's increasing radical turn will expose them to institutional violence. And while I do *not* love the image of a Black man playing Judas committing suicide by hanging himself, there's a heft to the fears of institutional violence when voiced by a Black actor that lends me a lot more sympathy to Judas's perspective than those same lines sung by Tim Minchin.
The 2012 stage adaptation was not a proper musical, really, it was an arena show, and it suffered from stunt casting and a general feeling of being rushed. Tim Minchin is not a strong enough singer for musical theater, and he's not a strong enough actor to pull off the emotional struggles of the lead role of Judas. The same moment of decision, where Judas chooses to betray Jesus, was portrayed with Tim Minchin being harassed by a street electric guitarist - his pleas to be saved from damnation for his actions afterwards felt super, super fake. He also had no chemistry with that Jesus.
As well not giving the actors room to emotionally hit their emotional highs and lows, the 2012 adaptation had some poorly thought out stuff. Since everyone in the cast was English, the distinctions of the 1973 show, that followers of Jesus speak with American accents while Pilate spoke with a clear English RP accent, was lost. That mattered.
Also, weirdly, the cast of the 2012 production were nearly uniformly white? I can't figure out why - they were talking about throwing over society and were clearly based on the Occupy movement and the setting was, as far as I could tell, an city that was vaguely London, so there's no reason why they should have been any less multiracial than the 1973 American adaptation. And yet, they chose a nearly completely white cast for some reason - the statement behind it wasn't clear?
I am probably going to have some more thoughts about this whole thing, but watching the 2012 version has really solidified the feelings I had that the 1973 version was a complete piece and it's the best way to introduce people to a show that is only questionably good.
ETA: I was reminded that a friend sent me this great little summary of the Judases in various JCS productions - https://ghostcat3000.tumblr.com/post/615220304413900800/h0lyhandgrenade-in-case-you-didnt-know-im-a
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Do you have an opinion on the 2000 movie? (That's the one I've seen.)
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...and yup, the description of 2000!Judas in that tumblr post you linked sounds about right!
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I really like the 1973 movie adaptation too, but the only other version I've ever seen was the MIT Musical Theater Guild production circa 2003. Which was pretty good, but it's weird source material to work with.
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It's funny that it would be controversial to me, because the musical doesn't even really engage with the issue of Jesus's divinity - not even the Apostles are really thinking in those terms.
I *suppose* one could read the 1973 version's depiction of Gethsemane - where it has the weird art history powerpoint presentation about the crucifixion in the middle of the song - as being a vision from God about the meaning of Jesus's death in future history? But it's real, real vague. The musical just doesn't seem interested in that.
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I totally agree. It struck me early on (from Minchin's performance but also Ben Forster's) that this version wasn't going to have a compelling emotional connection between Judas and Jesus. But being a fan of a lot of Tim Minchin's comedy and immediately thinking of at least a half-dozen songs of his about atheism and skepticism, I initially thought: "Okay, cool, maybe they're harnessing the celebrity casting here, and the fact that he's just kind of sneering his way through this number is because they're going to have Judas's objections to the supernatural rumours springing up about Jesus not just make him fear for the future of their movement but be more philosophically central to him. Maybe he's here against the old laws as much as against Roman oppression and this is going to pay off big time when we see him with Caiaphas and Annas. Maybe in lieu of focusing on the emotions, all this Occupy imagery and having Jesus and the apostles costumed and coiffed to image-conscious Protestor Chic is at least leading to some commentary on the in-group politics of activist movements."
But...no. If there was anything there, I missed it.