(including the 39 lashes)

and your mind YOUR MIND YOUR MIND.... your will is being manipulated in some way. maybe its magic, maybe its mundane. maybe youre just doing what you always wanted to do and now you have an excuse that puts you comfortably in the role of victim, or maybe theres something truly wrong happening to your brain and youre acting in ways you never ever wanted to. maybe something between the two. whatever the means really are, youre doing something youre going to regret, that you already regret. and god, you feel dirty. sick and used. deceived. 

you dont speak your final decision to them, you simply kiss them. they just barely bring themself to forgive you, they breathe your name on their lips and you can’t look at them a moment longer.

You can often tell how sympathetic a production is to the Pharisees’ fear by looking at how they treat the “he is dangerous” section of “This Jesus Must Die.” It’s there for a reason—to establish the stakes of their continued existence under Rome. The section is obviously unnerving, but it’s up to the direction of the show whether the audience is afraid OF the Pharisees or afraid FOR the Pharisees.

The groundwork for the Pharisees’ fear is right there in the music. This section is the first time audience hears the “howling mob” from the outside. The eerie echoes of “Hosanna, Superstar” reframe the obsession of the crowd in a deeply unnerving light. A production with the goal of making people afraid for the Pharisees will use these echoes of the crowd to put the audience in the Pharisees’ shoes, listening to the crowd close in on them. Even the musical sound of the “he is dangerous” refrain itself can be used to sympathize with the Pharisees—it’s dangerously unstable, and that instability stems from the Pharisees’ fear.

Unfortunately, elements of this are present in the text - JCS is far from a perfect work, and there certainly is more dynamic development for Pilate. It takes a lot of care with framing to pull it off in a way that isn’t offensive. 

In addition to the above fantastic ideas about making use of the Pharisees’ obvious and legitimate fears, and afraid-for-the-Pharisees interpretation (especially to emphasize they’re facing a classic trolley problem), there’s also more to it wrt good Pharisee portrayals, specifically when it comes to costuming and consistency.

To wit - even if you go the route of depicting the Pharisees’ concerns as legitimate, their costuming can kind of negate this, especially if your depictions fall into stereotypes. I’m talking about when 2012 London recorded version with Tim Minchin dresses them as Wall Street businessmen, with Jesus’ followers being a metaphor for the Occupy Movement, literally painting rabbis as Greedy Corrupt Capitalists and the first Christians as a radical burgeoning socialist movement to combat this. 2012 Broadway fared little better - people have complained to varying degrees about the black cloaked figures aspect of the otherwise awesome JCSL version (imo it’s fine bc they’re more sci fi and it makes them look authoritative and cool), but combining the black trenchcoats with fake dreadlocks for no discernible reason (on mostly white actors!), Eastern-looking hats, and having the prop choice be them counting out coins from their trunks…yikes. Even the set dressing can lend itself to unfortunate implications - JCS 2000 gives us a High Priests’ House that everyone and their cousin has noted looks like a low-budget version of the Death Star meeting table from A New Hope, which is all kinds of screwed up considering that version’s Roman Empire being literally depicted as fascists, and the Star Wars Empire clearly having fascist roots/basis/inspiration as well, all this thereby coding the Pharisees as fascistic as well. These can go a long way in detracting from sympathetic framing, while also being antisemitic. 

And then there’s consistency - while it’s all well and good to have This Jesus Must Die depict the fear and pressures the Pharisees are deliberating, later choices as the show goes on can also negate this. Key example - JCS 2000, which I swear can’t do anything right ever, at first appears (…quality notwithstanding) to be giving us a visibly concerned Caiaphas, also having the “Hosanna, Superstar” echoes fall through the ceiling cracks and into the Pharisees’ house/domain, apparently lending itself to the “afraid for the Pharisees” depiction…only for this all to be completely negated by the fact that the Pharisees are unquestionably sinister in this version. They beat up on Judas with little clue as to why, and they are much more clearly shown to be the driving force in pushing Pilate’s decisions (Pilate, who is, I reiterate, costumed like a fascist soldier).