“Jesus Christ Superstar,” 23 years old and looking ancient, arrived in the Chicago Theatre on Tuesday night in a revival that appears to have been thrown together by the money-changers in the temple and the devil himself.
From its beginnings as a 1970 stage production in London, this famous rock opera by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice on the passion of Jesus Christ has had bad luck in its theatrical incarnations.
Loud, crass and flamboyant to start with, the work has been treated with ineptitude and campy excess in most of its major productions, and the current presentation, directed and choreographed by Tony Christopher as a cross between clumsy high school skit and sleazy nightclub lounge act, is no exception.
For this version, which looks 1970s-antique (not to mention musty) in everything from its threadbare hippy costumes to its cumbersome hand mikes, an old-timers’ group of show business veterans, some of whom can still sing well, has been assembled and packaged for a national tour.
Ted Neeley and Carl Anderson, who portrayed Jesus and Judas Iscariot, respectively, in the 1973 film of the musical, repeat their roles, joined by Irene Cara of “Fame” fame as Mary Magdalene and Dennis DeYoung of the rock band Styx as Pontius Pilate.
The marketing strategy appears to be working. The weeklong run, through Sunday, is virtually sold out, and the show has been booked for a return visit July 21-25.
It’s therefore useless, but necessary, to point out that despite this box-office success, the show is pretty awful.
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The production, which comes complete with an amplified band in the orchestra pit and the requisite tower of loudpeakers on each side of the stage, is nothing if not noisy, but the amplification sounds so tinny that at times Jesus and the Apostles sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks.
The scenery, displaying plenty of drop curtains and special effects, nonetheless remains disastrously focused on a bare, ugly bleacher platform that serves as the central playing area, and the costumes look unredeemably cheap and tacky, especially in the red flutterings of the three chorus girl “Angels” who wiggle and squirm like unschooled strippers. The lighting, as in many rock concerts, is impressive, filled with strobe lights and flashy effects.
All of the principals can still wind themselves up for the big, aggressive numbers that Webber and Rice whipped up for their show. Neeley screeches mightily in his “Gethsemane” cries, and Cara swoops jerkily up and down the lyrics of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.” DeYoung cleanly blasts out Pilate’s limited role, and Anderson, now as then, offers the most consistently powerful vocalizing in the cast.
Someday, “Jesus Christ Superstar” may receive the kind of smart, slick, spectacular staging that Harold Prince gave to Lloyd Webber’s and Rice’s “Evita,” and when that happens, perhaps this dead-end musical will seem more than a cheap, profane and manipulative ripoff of the Gospels.
We live in hope.
`JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR’
A rock opera with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice, directed and choreographed by Tony Christopher, with scenery by Bill Stabile, lighting by Rick Belzer, costumes by David Paulin, sound by Jonathan Deans, musical direction by Michael Rapp. Opened Tuesday at the Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State St., and plays again at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Running time: 2:15. Tickets are $30.50 to $43.50. Phone 312-559-1212.
THE CAST
Jesus of Nazareth ……….. Ted Neeley
Judas Iscariot …………. Carl Anderson
Mary Magdalene …………. Irene Cara
Pontius Pilate …………. Dennis DeYoung
Caiaphas ………………. David Bedella
Annas …………………. Danny Zolli
King Herod …………….. Laurent Giroux
Simon …………………. Steven X. Ward
Peter ………………… Kevin R. Wright
With James O’Neil, J. Steven Campanelli, Nathaniel Sanders, Kate L. Snyder, Amy Splitt, Kristen Young, Dawn Feusi, David Marques, Laurie Carter, Leesa Richards.