Can Single-Celled Life Forms Pray? A look into the First Broadway Performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Jesus Christ Superstar"

Image Taken from the 1971 Broadway Production of "Jesus Christ Superstar"

"Jesus Christ Superstar" is a musical that's been getting a lot of attention recently due to its recent Hollywood Bowl performance with an all-star cast. It featured Cynthia Erivo in the titular role of Jesus and the long fan-casted Adam Lambert as the main character, Judas. The Hollywood Bowl show isn't what I want to write about, but it did ignite the flame of what I want to write about. With a recent "Jesus Christ Superstar" Renaissance on the way with a possible tour of the musical and rumors of the Hollywood Bowl Show being brought to New York, there's something even more interesting when it comes to this show to me. When Jesus Christ Superstar opened on Broadway it was directed by maximalist director Tom O'Horgan who decided that the entire musical should be single celled life forms and evolved bug people staged on the body of Jesus Christ. I will get into this more later, but first I think we need to recap what "Jesus Christ Superstar" is about.

"Jesus Christ Superstar" by Andrew Lloyd Webber's Album Cover

"Jesus Christ Superstar" is a retelling of the biblical figure Jesus's life through the perspective of Judas, who famously got Jesus crucified. The big twist is that it's a rock musical, so it takes inspiration from rock music instead of jazz or other styles of music that musicals were incorporating before it. This leads to really odd moments like in the song "Gethsemane" when Jesus is asking God to take away the suffering he's about to endure and he just lets out this really odd rock scream in the middle of the song. Like it doesn't even fit in with the song at all it just feels like Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice were just like "Yeah we have GOT to make sure people think this stuff is cool so just- just- put in a little scream in there so you know we're making rock music." Rock musicals were popularized when the musical "Hair" came out, a musical that had very minimal plot, but the music was good, so everybody liked it.

Image Taken from the 1971 Broadway Production of "Jesus Christ Superstar"

Now we can get into the REAL good stuff we're talking about, the 1971 FIRST Broadway production of "Jesus Christ Superstar". Most productions of this musical don't do much concept work within them. The most you'll get is the "show within a show" trope where it isn't actually a depiction of the story but a depiction of a theatre troupe putting on a show of the story. It's okay, I also think that that's pretty dumb. In the 1971 production, everyone is dressed up as these microorganism-like and evolved bug people who are starting their own religion on the body of Christ. The concept is already insane and that's what I love about this production. The stage is literally supposed to be the body of Jesus Christ; you can see it in the first image I included. The only problem with this production is that there is a minimal amount of information about it and very few images as well.

Image Taken from the 1971 Broadway Production of "Jesus Christ Superstar"

From the images I've seen, it seems like Jesus and Judas are not part of this "bug theme" that all the other actors around them are clothed in. They are in the same costumes we see in almost every production of this musical, wearing their usual robes. This adds such an interesting contrast to this production. It's almost as if it's hinting this as a possible "future of Earth" where all human life is extinct and these bug people are picking up where we left off. Whatever way you want to see it, it's a really interesting production.

Image Taken from the 1971 Broadway Production of "Jesus Christ Superstar"

Remember when I called Tom O'Horgan a maximalist? This is the scene where Jesus is crucified and it's almost as if he's emerging from a chrysalis. I mean the work on these props is just breathtaking, and don't even get me started on the scale of it all. But like all good things rise, they eventually fall, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice HATED this production of "Jesus Christ Superstar" so much it would cause them to oversee almost every production of their shows ever since.

I'm going to take this final moment to complain. Many modern theatre productions are staged so boringly. Did you know almost every recent production of "Jesus Christ Superstar" is always staged on just a really big flight of stairs??? BORING. Everyone is calling Jamie Lloyd a genius for his work on "Sunset Boulevard" and "Evita"???? THERE'S BARELY A SET AND ALL THE ACTORS ARE WEARING WHITE T SHIRTS AND HOODIES!!!!!!! MAKE THEATRE COSTUMES AND SETS FUN THAT'S ALL I'M ASKING FOR PLEASEEEEE!!!!!! Like they just did this production of "Oklahoma!" (Basic musical but one of my favorites) recently and they twisted it so that the main character looks like this psychopath, and you feel bad for the villain (They have like a Mickey Mouse and Petey dynamic in the original). What I'm saying here is that modern directors need to step their game up like the 1971 "Jesus Christ Superstar" production did. The director really has true power to display characters and environment the way they want to portray them in so I think we have to bring more creatives or bold thinkers to larger productions.