#theater study

Study for Possessed Actor (An actor being taken by an onryō while performing in an historical play), 2018

The Last Supper-Jesus Christ Superstar. 

This is one of my favorite songs from the entire show because you really get to see the true humanity of all the characters. In the beginning you hear the apostles sing the line "then when we retire, we can write the gospels so they'll still talk about us when we die." This line serves to show that at a certain point people who follow an individual blindly will do so with good intentions but eventually act for their own interests. This isn't to say that they were bad just that they had spent so long involved in their own pursuit of this individual (Christ) that they ended up completely ignoring his message. It turned into a cult of personality. Their part in this entire show sort of goes to show the burden of "messiahs". No matter what a spiritual teacher does the crowd they are teaching will inevitably become lobotomized followers. A cult of personality will form whether the teacher wants it too or not. We spend the entire show watching Jesus come to terms with his own followers.  This is exemplified in other songs from the show for example "Christ you know I love you, did you see I waved, I believe in you and God so tell me that I'm saved."(Simon's song) or in "What's the Buzz" Jesus's disciples talk over him for the entirety of the song, much to his dismay. (This is also exemplified in pretty much all of Monty Python's The Life of Brian.)

Jesus is so distraught by his unintentional cult that towards the end of the song we are able to see him finally realize that what he thought were his students had simply turned into followers with the lie "Yes, I must be out of my head.Look at your blank faces. My name will mean nothing, ten minutes after I'm dead."

What follows is one of my favorite scenes in all of theater. Jesus is forced to come face to face with Judas who, despite his betrayal, was Jesus's only friend up until that point. The story of their friendship is so tragic because Judas was the only person that could see what was becoming of their movement. The error lies in both of them because where Jesus took no action until it was too late, Judas took action that he would never be able to take back ending in the death of his great friend and teacher. In this confrontation we can begin to see a defeated Jesus that has realized that everything Judas said was correct and he has made a grave miscalculation this entire time.