#jcsposting

First of all, the set (as pictured above). The Watermill is an actual converted corn mill, making it a unique, very small theatre with only about 100~ seats, and the balcony goes pretty much round to the stage. It also has a garden at the back which is often incorporated into productions. The stage was made to look kind of like an abandoned church, and the seating in the garden included old church pews

The lighting was a real highlight in this production so I'll try to remember notable moments as I go along, but it was emphasised by there being a base amount of smoke covering the performance area pretty much throughout

Notable thing about this prod is it is actor-muso!! All the cast played multiple instruments (except I think jesus?? he might have had a guitar at some point but i don't think so, he may have been the only one who didn't play anything). I personally prefer naturalistic/historical interpretations of jcs but I do like actor-muso shows in general and this was Very well-done. Not just guitars/piano/drums, quite a lot of brass and strings as well

As it's such a small theatre it's very intimate, and the cast go into and around the audience pretty much constantly

Simon opens the overture w the guitar stings

During the overture (i THINK the superstar opening that happens near the end), a bright red electric guitar descends from the ceiling. JUDAS is the one who picks it up and uses it to start playing Heaven On Their Minds. I didn't get the guitar motif until literally judas' death but it represents the need to betray jesus as a fated heavenly task or whatever

Really liked Judas' voice, kinda punk-emo but still musical theatre. He had a bit of a different energy than most interpretations - he was actually more aligned with the other disciples and trying to get them on his side, while being at times openly hostile and incredulous to jesus. it was an interesting set-up for a judas concept, but after Everything's Alright he completely disappeared until blood money so it kind of petered out. Makes sense given how tiny the space is and how much guitar he probably needs to be playing, but a shame!

In HOTM, judas starts stage-left playing his guitar in white light, and then jesus appears stage-right in warm gold light, kinda like a tableau. They stay with these lighting patterns for the entire song. Jesus moves around the stage with Judas following him and stopping him - Jesus will listen for a bit, then walk off mildly annoyed

At one point (I think during the 'nazareth your famous son' section) jesus left the stage to walk around the back of the audience and come back on the other side of the stage, which meant judas could sing At Him but still directly looking out over the audience for the 'don't you care for your race' verse, which was nice

By the end of the song jesus is surrounded by followers, all lit in gold, and judas is back in the back right hand corner in white, and then on the final beat judas' spotlight turns off leaving just jesus and his followers at the front in gold

Mary does the first What's The Buzz! Where judas has an electric guitar, she has an acoustic. She used a beer bottle to cool down his face, which Jesus then sips from for 'ooh, that is good' lol

Two disciples were straight up about to punch each other on 'why are you obsessed with fighting'

That said, in this song and all the other disciple scenes they do all seem to really love each other, they're always very happy to see each other and lots of hugging and laughing. Only one seems to have a really good relationship w jesus tho, like very genuine hugs and jesus smiling back at him, and then in the Gethsemane bit it turned out that was John and I was like oh my god OF COURSE it's john!!!!! He has twists and sunglasses and a big leather coat and he's always saying stuff like 'thats what I'm talking about!!'

Strange Thing, Mystifying it's literally like everyone is gaslighting Judas like he's making points and looking at everyone like hello??? Am I crazy???? And then Jesus insults all the followers and Judas is like guys we do not need to take this!!! And they're like nooooo jesus :(((((

Similarly in Everything's Alright, Judas is getting genuinely upset like GUYS!!! PLEASE!! THE POOR!!! and everyone is like shut up <3 the 'everything's alright' repetition at the end is explicitly aimed at judas, but it's also gentle still, they really are just trying to be like dw it's okay! and one literally tries to put his arm around judas but he shakes him off. he's looking around at everyone like he is the only sane person in the room idk how to explain but it Is different from other versions. as i say very fun interpretation shame that judas completely disappears as a cohesive character at this point.

CUNTY PRIESTS ALERT!! i can't remember if it's that the lights went out and then up or if the back of the stage went up but suddenly there are four priests standing behind an altar with two candelabras and a covered dish on. i love them very much. all dressed in black with silver metal.

gay moustache annas and dreads caiaphus yaaaaay! both were so so good, potentially my favourite caiaphus ever, i wish i had more words but u just have to trust me

used the 'infantile sermons' alt lyric

the other two priests seemed like they were friends :) the female priest sang 'how can we stop him, his glamour increases by leaps every minute, he's -' and then the other one took over for the really deep 'he's top of the poll' line that she wouldn't be able to reach and they do like a nod to each other

love the orchestration - from 'the crowd crown him king which the romans would ban' onward there's like this super swampy BWAHHHH BWAHHHH brass that's very fun

❗favourite choice of the production❗ so the covered metal dish in the middle of the altar. when the priests sang 'where do we start with a man who is bigger than john was when john did his baptism thing', the female priest was behind the altar still and she reached out and held the top of the cloche, paused for a millisecond for you to register it, then lifted it up to reveal... a big pile of fruit, from which she take a grape, which she put in her mouth and chewed meaningfully as she finished the line. incredible bit, perfectly executed.

speaking of comedy. FIRST OF ALL the guy playing annas was the trumpet player, so it was literally 'jesus must.... dieeeieieieieee...' (he looked SO gleeful when caiaphus suggested this btw) and they're standing back behind the altar in their cool-guy line-up, then he had to do the fanfare to announce the beginning of hosanna. and then hosanna starts and they are SO ANNOYINGGG like the disciples come on one by one wearing laurel wreaths and they're doing flips and kicks and shit with huge smiles it is EXCESSIVE. they were throwing confetti from the balconies. you can see why they want them dead it's so funny

One of the disciples was standing on a block at the edge of the stage shaking some bells and he could reach up to the balcony so he was addressing a member of the audience who was sat there, and then he passed her his bells to jingle :)

Simon Zealotes! Very fun, again lots of yelling from the disciples and John and Jesus hugging and everyone doing mouth trills and cheering. The choreo always shines on this song and I have to say I haven't really mentioned it so far but the dancing in this show is outstanding

Simon himself is kind of set up like a popstar? They put out a mic stand for him at the front and cheer loudly as he sings and plays guitar. He has very similar facial hair to jesus which made me wonder if he was the jesus understudy and they wanted to use the same graphics (they sometimes project an image of jesus on the back), but he's actually the judas understudy which must be wild bc they are VERY different types

During/after Poor Jerusalem, the ensemble kinda awkwardly wander off bc JC killed the vibe.

Pilate comes out while jesus is still on stage. He is wearing a mesh vest.

In The Temple, a big neon cross that says TEMPLE CASINO on it comes down from the ceiling, which one of the cast immediately puts their middle fingers up at?? So funny for no reason.

Does the full version of the temple rather than just repeating the same verse which so many productions seem to do. Lots of audience interaction, especially the front row of stalls

Jesus says 'THE temple should be a house of prayer' rather than 'my' but idk if this was an intentional choice. Someone hands him a guitar and it's like omg is he gonna smash it?? But he just kind of awkwardly brandishes it at people and then pretends to smash it by tapping it gingerly on the floor. Odd. Does make all the ensemble clear out anyway

Most of them just wait in the aisles of the audience tho so they can come back and be the lepers. Nothing else really notable about that number.

I Don't Know How To Love Him felt very genuine. Felt very true to the dynamic that they have in this version, very minimal staging, very sweet voice.

Blood Money felt jarring ngl. It's been so long since we saw Judas and he just kind of staggers onto the stage, gets circled by three disciples, and then starts singing facing the audience while the priests stand in their line at the back of the stage again.

Uses the need -> want order for judas refusing the money

There is more of the guitar motif here - he takes it off and sets it on the ground, but then after he gives in and tells the priests what they need to know (after they'd already given up and begun to walk away), he has to pick it up again. The final image of the first act is Judas standing centre-stage, facing the back but turning slightly over his shoulder, holding the neck of the guitar that faces out to the audience

act 2 begins outside! the theatre garden acts as the garden of gethsemane. most of the audience can sit down but some have to stand behind the pews. It was raining a bit for us but not enough to be a problem (altho I did see peter get up half way through gethsemane to ask a member of staff to bring him an umbrella for his double bass), and they provide blankets

disciples again very friendly and happy for the last supper, and some of them came to sit among the audience. there was space on our pew and john came and sat next to me!! He was holding a basket of bread and when I eyeballed it he gave me some (which i have become accustomed to since the last one I saw was the Dutch tour), but they didn't actually hand it out. idk if that's because it was a matinee and they were saving it for the evening one bc it was very fresh and there was loads of it. Didn't get to enjoy any more John Time bc by then jesus was on the 'for all you care' lines and john ran up to give him bread to use for the bread one

Kind of get the sense the disciples weren't sure if jesus was joking or something at first, very mixed reactions and awkward laughing from them

After Judas runs off the first time, the 'look at all my trials and tribulations' section is very faux-cheerful and again that same sense of 'haha everything is fine!!!' that was happening earlier, which i guess yes all your followers are (wilfully) blind, and really works with the 'whats that in the bread' line. they're very much wincing smiling trying to convince the audience that there isn't a problem, just like they did to judas in the first act

Notable exception to the above is that peter (whose strings are very prominent in the music, but verging on discordant) is very >:'( about his accusation

Also playing an instrument in this section is caiaphus, who is standing back over on the theatre fire escape (see below), so he really is 'waiting' for judas

The 'will no one stay awake with me' directions that jesus was speaking is how I finally clocked it was John btw.

Ok. Gethsemane. You may have noticed I have not really mentioned jesus' characterisation yet and. Well. That is because there isn't much to say. He is a very good singer and he is VERY pretty, but I didn't pick up much of anything acting-wise. If anything I get the vibe he doesn't really care about the cause and is just there to get adoration and flirt w Mary, which is an interpretation that works!! And does lend depth to the Judas angle they're working with in this show. But means there isn't that much to say about gethsemane. I will say that I want to go to an evening performance near the end of the run so it will actually be dark for this part, although he tends to go on the little stage under the tree rather than actually yelling to the heavens for the big notes

Some nice acting moments of more spoken-word lyrics, but nothing specific. Like it WAS well-acted as a song (which people don't always do!), just not necessarily in aid of any specific character choices. The 'see how I die' melody choices were good. Uses the 'god thy will be done' alt lyric!

When the music dropped the wind and the rain filling the gap rather than theatre-silence was genuinely powerful

I wasn't sat at the best angle for the kiss but it was fine! Cheek kiss but lingering

The guards who arrested jesus asked the 'tell me christ how you feel tonight' questions, but JOHN tearfully asked 'did you pick an efficient team??' which is like. did he have pre-existing beef w judas.

disciples sing 'now THEY have him' while guards sing 'now WE have him'. both sets sing 'take him to pilate', but disciples are more from the angle of 'give him a fair trial'

annas is on the roof!! caiaphus is on the fire escape! it's cool as fuck!

for most of it judas is standing on the little bridge bit as well

peter's denial also happens out here but nothing really to say about it other than peter has nice rough rasping vocals which goes a long way to making the 'i don't know him' not sound awkward. mary sounds like she's about to cry him 'cut him dead', like actually sick

at this point some guards come and escort the audience back inside the theatre.

jesus is kneeling on the stage with his hands tied behind his back for like a solid 5+ mins while this happens (he was wearing knee pads)

Nothing to say about the first pilate section, so Herod's song! Part of the back of the stage goes up to reveal Herod lounging across a throne. He has rik mayall herod energy but he's dressed in black

After the first line, a shirtless man in bdsm gear comes out and gives him a drink. He says 'thank you darling' and drinks it

Second line another one comes out, and third line a girl wearing a collar crawls onto stage. They all laugh after 'now I understand you're god', then herod abruptly stops and glares at all of them

He gets up to dance, and after the first verse they rip off his costume to reveal a leather daddy spandex shortsuit (yes he has the leather daddy hat)

Lots of red lighting and camp bdsm-themed dancing. The ensemble kind of go different routes with it but they all have a manic possessed energy like they're being puppeted. He slaps the hand of one of them and calls them naughty and she looks distraught for the rest of the song. The music features circus-style riffs. He lines up his dancers at the end and kills them all in different ways, just like in the dutch production, but they all get up at the end to laugh jesus out the room

I never really like Could We Start Again Please but mary was actively crying which made it more engaging. The disciples put down candles in the background.

Judas' Death again felt like it came out of nowhere. Was a fun moment where Annas has to come on playing so he's like '🙄🎺🎺 cut the confessions'

I Dont Know How To Love Him Reprise was. Odd. The entire first section was in falsetto while on the back wall it projected what I can only describe as a fan edit of jesus and judas in black and white with like a close up of the kiss and them lingering near each other afterwards. felt out of place ngl

This was where I finally understood the guitar motif bc he took it off again and was holding it and looking at it when he said 'ill never know why you chose me for your crime'

His actual death was someone handing him a noose and then he stood in the alcove at the back of the stage and silver confetti exploded over him and all the lights went out. It was dark for quite a long while (probably while they removed any stray confetti) but the ensemble were all around the audience so the 'good old judas, so long judas' was genuinely haunting

In Trial Before Pilate, pilate literally runs across the stage to grab jesus' face for 'talk to me jesus christ', and the recognition when the Pilate's Dream music plays is really emphasised. He looks horrible and throws himself away from jesus again.

39 lashes is done by the ensemble hitting jesus with bloody hands, leaving handprints all over him. He's standing facing the audience for about half of it, then falls to his knees, and by the end he is dragging himself on his stomach toward pilate up steps at the back of the stage. Annas screams 'HARDER!!!!' at one point.

They actually blind the audience for the start of Superstar like they shine powerful golden lights DIRECTLY into everyone's face, so you feel as dazzled as jesus does. Through the song he kind of staggers around bewildered, including walking around the back of the audience like he did in HOTM, only this time instead of Judas being excluded on the stage he's the main event

The dancers come out with these light poles which they make into cross near the end of the song, but more importantly for the line 'israel in 4bc' they hold them up to make a star of david with judas' face in the middle

the crucifixion is done by securing the two ladders that have been on stage the whole time into a cross, which jesus then climbs up onto. He says his lines and then his disciples get him down and carry him offstage.