Jesus Christ Superstar Gets 10 out of 10
The Cast of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Fairlawn Community Center
The first review for my new column couldn’t have been for a better show. Old Library Theatre presented Jesus Christ Superstar July 30-August 8 at the Fair Lawn Community Center and the show was everything I was told it would be and more.
The show was directed and choreographed by Alex Perez. His ideas brought a modern setting to the show. His goal was to take the major issues of today’s society and put Jesus and his apostles into real life situations and I certainly saw that throughout the entire show. Putting JCS into this concept could be very controversial while being believable. Jesus is viewed as seeing the true meaning of spirituality, while everyone else’s view of human life is marked by sex, greed, power, and religion. However, the concept made complete sense. It was portrayed beautifully.
The references to the 21st century were very strong throughout. Some of the major real life situations shown were: paparazzi flashing away with cameras as Jesus was being beaten and the crucifixion mimicking the electrocutions. These two images made relevant social commentary.
The show grabbed my attention right from the moment the actors came on stage and the orchestra started playing.
The orchestra was outstanding. The music in general is wonderful. The music is a rock opera so it featured guitar, bass guitar, piano, keyboard, and drums. Jesus Christ Superstar’s music was written by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice who have done several other big name shows, most notably Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and one of my favorite musicals of all time The Phantom of the Opera.
Rock opera’s are loud shows. They don’t really have the sweet and sentimental softer sounds that shows like The Sound of Music have. They are glaring, but still present the passion that musicals and plays present. Rock opera’s, as I mentioned in the preview, are very hard to perform. There is no dialogue so the performers have to be spot on the music at all times. I thought the actors were fantastic and presented the music in a very inspiring way. I really felt the emotion taking place while sitting there and watching it.
Another thing that really helped me appreciate the show was the set. This was one of the best set designs I’ve seen in all my years of theatre and I have seen great sets during my time. It just made the show that much more exciting. There were stairs on stage right and ladders on stage that led to platforms on which the actors stood. Stage left also had a little bit of a junk yard scene with TV’s stacked on top of one another. Center stage had a smaller platform, which featured the orchestra on it.
The costumes were very controversial and were probably the thing that surprised me the most, with partial nudity. However, with the setting being modern it’s understandable why the actors were wearing them. While I was shocked they would have costumes like that it helped portray the underlining message in the show.
The acoustics in the Fair Lawn Community Center made the actors sound clear and crisp. I didn’t have any problem listening to the actors sing or hearing the orchestra. It was impressive how great everything sounds in FLCC. Sometimes the sound is terrible and even though the leads have microphones it can be very hard to make out the words to songs. I experienced many shows where that is the case.
One of my favorite parts was the lighting. The lighting used involved strobe lights and the normal stage lights. The effects that were brought through the lighting made the show even bigger. For this particular show you had to have a huge lighting design to capture the minds of the audience through the message and feeling of the actors. The colors were each designed for feeling-if the mood was somber then the lights were set with a smaller tone of colors. But when it came time for the big ensemble numbers or solos the lights were brighter, hotter, and fuller.
The choreography was unique. The movement on stage resembled that of a crowd, instead of dancing, therefore making the transitions between scenes more fluid. The big dance number in JCS was: “King Herod’s Song (Try It and See)”. That was by far the best number in the entire show.
My favorite songs in the show were: “Everything’s Alright,” “Poor Jerusalem,” “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” “Dammed for All Time,” “Blood Money,” “Kind Herod’s Song (Try It and See)” “Could We Start Again Please,” and “Superstar.”
The actors performed very good roles and were perfect picks for their parts. All of the leads had fantastic stage presence and great voices. The entire cast blew me away with their interpretation of the show.
Finally, the length of the show was kept a little bit under two hours. The first act alone was about 45 minutes which is relatively short for musicals. The second act was about an hour so the JCS ran for approximately 2 hours with the 15 minute intermission thrown in.
I fully enjoyed the show from the opening until the end. It was extremely enjoyable and I give JCS a 10 out of 10 rating.
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1 Comments
Sorry we missed it. Have seen this show at various venues since 1972! Our last performance took place at West Point Feb. 2009.