JESUS Christ Superstar opened at The Civic Theatre in Newcastle on Wednesday night, and the audience was treated to an unforgettable night at the rock opera.
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It wasn’t perfect. Opening nights rarely are.
At times, headset microphones cut in and out. And some singers didn’t always hit their cues or time their phrasing.
But it was edgy, stylistically eclectic, energetic and totally engaging.
The National Theatre Company has produced a version of Superstar that is interesting for so many reasons.
There were some excellent performances by the leads.
The youthful supporting cast provided lots of energy, colour and activity.
And there were some interesting choices by director Chris Maxfield and his production team.
More about that later.
At the heart of this production is the rocking 41-piece orchestra directed by Greg Paterson.
Part of the magic of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice masterpiece is how the music so precisely and deeply sets the mood.
Mood is everything.
If you break that mood with a bum oboe note, the spell is broken.
And with a 41-piece band under his baton, Paterson was playing a dangerous game of risk and reward.
Would the juggernaut run out of control and become an overblown distraction?
The answer is an emphatic no!
The band was so good I could have sat with my back to the stage and still raved about how good a night I had.
But it’s a good thing I sat facing the action, because this production of Superstar is a feast for the eyes and heart too.
The story follows the last seven days in the life of Jesus Christ, seen largely from the perspective of Judas Iscariot.
Maxfield and his production team have set their Superstar in a modern city.
Jesus’s young followers carry iPhones and take selfies, the market in the temple is more like a nigthclub – complete with a pole dancer – and surveillance camera footage is projected onto a screen at the back of the stage.
Setting Superstar in modern times has become the norm in recent years. And I don’t get it.
As far as I’m aware, they never set Pirates of Penzance on a space ship. They never set Grease in a 1980s Australian high school.
So why the need to juxtapose biblical characters and a grungy 21st century city?
In this National Theatre Company production, Judas, played by Marty Worrall (Australian Idol and The Voice) gets around in jeans, a leather jacket and beanie.
Yet Pontius Pilate (Dez Robertson) wears something akin to a German officer's uniform from World War II.
Perhaps costume designer Bev Fewins has done this to more clearly differentiate the mob from the ruling class.
And while Judas departs via a self-inflicted shot from a handgun (rather than hanging), Jesus is still nailed to a cross. Go figure.
Setting Superstar in modern times is not only fraught visually, it messes with the lyrics and story.
In the original stagings of Superstar in the 1970s, the ghost of Judas returns from the dead, into the current day, to quiz Jesus about the where and when of his life.
Judas sings:
‘‘If you’d come today you would have reached the whole nation / Israel in 4BC had no mass communication.’’
And: ‘‘Why’d you choose such a backward time and such a strange land?’’
But in the NTC production, when the entire musical is set today, and in a modern telecommunicating city, it makes no sense to ask those big questions.
I know what you're thinking. Yes, I’m a pedantic Superstar nerd, and this is theatre, and it’s about suspending disbelief, right?
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen this show staged.
I thought I’d seen it all, when it comes to new spins on Superstar.
Yet Maxfield has brought some creative new ideas to the stage.
Judas’s suicide scene tops that list.
And the 39 lashes is among the most riveting and realistic portrayals I’ve witnessed of that scene. (Kudos to the whip cracker, who delivered on the count every time.)
There are more subtle innovations, too.
When Mary Magdalene (Alicia Paterson) sings I Don’t Know How to Love Him, it’s usually a spotlight solo moment for the female lead. But Maxfield and choreographer Isabelle Leonard have introduced two young dancers to the scene, and it works a treat.
On opening night, Worrall warmed to the role nicely.
In his opening number, Heaven on Their Minds, there was a raspiness to his voice on the big notes that seemed to surprise even him.
But it was a temporary blip on an otherwise excellent performance.
Worrall’s Judas was at first brooding and understated.
Judas is clearly troubled by the conflicting forces of his friendship with Jesus, versus his concern about Jesus’s growing profile and for the group’s welfare.
At the last supper, when Judas clashes with Jesus and leaps onto the dining table it takes Worrall’s performance and his character’s despair to a new level – figuratively and literally.
His exchange of anguished, killer high notes with Bathgate was fantastic.
His suicide scene was distressing but a dramatic highlight.
Bathgate brings a calm dignity to the role of Jesus in the first act. This makes his tortured and messy destruction in the second act so moving. And his big notes had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
Interestingly, several of the leads mixed or changed the lyrics on some songs.
It’s not clear if those tweaks were instructed.
If they were, the purpose of those changes was not evident.
Finally, special mention to Dez Robertson.
His portrayal of Pilate was full of gravitas and drama, and thoroughly compelling.
There was a lot of activity on stage during the dramatic Trial Before Pilate scene, but I could not take my eyes off Robertson.
■ Jesus Christ Superstar continues at The Civic Theatre, Newcastle, tonight, and tomorrow (Saturday, March 14) afternoon and evening. All sessions are sold out, but patrons can try their luck by contacting the box office to check if any tickets have been returned. A return season would be welcomed.