#lyricjcs

Jesus Christ Superstar has always been one of my favorite musicals.  I've seen a few productions of it over the years, from small community theater to Broadway in Chicago, and I love how it always surprises me.  The first act is so hippy weird, bouncing all over the place from one musical number to the next, with harsh steel guitar and rhythms and Jesus sandals and then love ballads and then back to steel guitar.  It's often difficult to actually make out the lyrics, so it's a good thing you mostly already know the plot.  The second act starts out much the same, but somewhere along the way it seamlessly and subtly begins to change course; and it leaves you in an unbelievably reverent place.  I ride that ride every time I see it.  I'm always transported back to the guitar masses at the weird hippy Catholic church of my childhood in Austin.  I just love it. 

I also love imagining what it must have been like when it first came out in the early 1970s.  It must have literally rocked the world right out of its comfort zone.  Especially when it was billed as a rock opera.  It's such a beautiful thought that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice had the vision to understand rock could make an opera. 

This production was my favorite by far.  The sets and costumes were a wonderful blend of reminiscent-hippie-era and post-apocalyptic-modern. The choreography was amazing and just weird enough. The cast was multiracial, Mary Magdalene was androgynous sporting a mohawk, Jesus had an impressive man-bun.  The vocals were perfect.  And there was a surprising amount of glitter at the tensest moments in the plot, which somehow worked. 

The whole thing just worked, and worked incredibly well.  I'm so glad I was able to see it!  I had been lusting after tickets for weeks but somehow could not get a plan together to see it, and then a friend came through with perfect discount seats in the fifth row at the last minute.  Sitting in the theater watching it, I felt so lucky.