A Poached Egg Jesus
I did not see Jesus Christ Superstar—the movie or the musical—when it first appeared in the sixties, and I have never felt any desire to see it in the almost fifty years since. But a friend who saw it at Stratford’s Shakespeare Festival this summer raved about it, and since my wife and I were planning to stop in Stratford for a couple of plays in early October, we thought we would book some tickets. Easier said than done. The play has been sold out for almost its entire five and a half-month run, and the only tickets my wife and I were able to book in August for an early October date were two single seats with obstructed visibility. We grabbed them.
What accounts for this old (1969) rock drama’s immense popularity now, we wondered. Is the audience comprised of a bunch of old coots hungry for a nostalgia buzz? Or is there, perhaps, a legitimate Jesus hunger in the culture?
We got to the theatre early and sat on a bench near the door in the lobby as people entered (people-watching is itself very good theatre). And we got an answer to our first question—if we base our judgment on the audience that came that day. The audience was made up of people of all ages: tour busses full of senior citizens and school busses full of high schoolers; family groups, sometimes three generations; church groups, and singles and couples of all ages. As to the second question, well, we’re still not sure.
As for the play itself, I would have to agree with those who rave about the spectacle of it. The dancing is marvelously energetic. The scene in which Jesus is whipped is powerfully evocative and realistic. And the crucifixion is spectacular: the cross, illuminated by a thousand small light bulbs (like a theatre marquee) swings down as Jesus shoots up into the air on a small mechanical pedestal until he appears to be set against it. It’s gaudy-brilliant, so clever and stunning that it evokes wild cheers from the audience.
But we do not—usually—go to a play just for spectacle and technical brilliance. We want to be captured by a story. In literature we use the phrase “willing suspension of disbelief.” For that to happen, the story one is watching must have an inner coherence that allows the audience—in this case, me—to surrender to the story. Jesus Christ Superstar does not have that, at least not for me.
Unfortunately, the Jesus of this rock musical does not have a clue about who he is. But the musical makes pretty clear who he is not. He is not the son of God. He is not the savior of the world. He is not the raiser of the dead. He is not even the healer of the sick. (The lepers that he encounters are still lepers after he touches them—but happier lepers.) The actor who portrays Jesus walks around with a blank face most of the time and seems puzzled about what he is supposed to be doing.
Judas Iscariot is the one who almost has it all together. He knows who he is and he thinks he knows who Jesus is or who he should be. Even after he hangs himself, he comes back to stage life in a jazzy electric blue suit singing “Superstar”: “I don’t understand/How you let the things you did/Get so out of hand.”
According to lyricist Tim Rice, Jesus Christ Superstar is essentially a love triangle with Judas and Mary Magdalene vying for Jesus’ attention. And the directors of the Stratford production have attempted to highlight that tension in their production. Much of the action and many of the song lyrics try to develop this non-biblical motif, and the result as they try to blend it with the biblical elements of the Christ story is an incoherent story line.
But the great dissonance in the Superstar story (this will surprise no one who remembers it from the 60’s) derives from the fact that Jesus is “just a man.” He has no supernatural powers; he hasn’t a clue why he has to die; he seems weak and needy most of the time. What makes him a superstar? What attracts all those followers, especially his disciples?
One theme that struck us as downright funny—though it is not intended to be—is the apostles concern for fame. It’s as if Rice takes the hunger for stardom that motivated so many 60’s rock stars and transfers it to the apostles and even to Jesus. This lyric, for example, makes one giggle even as it is sung ever so seriously by the apostles:
“Always hoped that I'd be an apostleKnew that I would make it if I triedThen when we retire we can write the gospelsSo they'll still talk about us when we've died”
Even Jesus seems motivated by the desire for fame and a place in history:
“I must be mad thinking I'll be remembered - yesI must be out of my head!Look at your blank faces! My name will mean nothingTen minutes after I'm dead!”
I went to the play with just the slight hope that it might be faith-affirming, and in a small, strange way it was. In Jesus Christ Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice give us such a mish-mash of the Biblical story, such a bland Jesus wandering about in confusion, that one wonders why anyone would have followed him. Because the story does not hold together, I am not caught by it; instead, I am irritated. Still, because I instinctively contrast it to the great Biblical narrative, I am reminded of what I have always known and believed: the grand narrative of scripture, culminating in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the redemption of the cosmos, does have an inner coherence. And throughout history, millions have found it absolutely believable.
C. S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity, “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said [“your sins are forgiven”] would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell.” Rice and Webber and the directors and producers of the Stratford Theatre production of Jesus Christ Superstar have given us a poached egg Jesus. And, though I did not gag on it, I was not nourished by it.
What accounts for this old (1969) rock drama’s immense popularity now, we wondered. Is the audience comprised of a bunch of old coots hungry for a nostalgia buzz? Or is there, perhaps, a legitimate Jesus hunger in the culture?
We got to the theatre early and sat on a bench near the door in the lobby as people entered (people-watching is itself very good theatre). And we got an answer to our first question—if we base our judgment on the audience that came that day. The audience was made up of people of all ages: tour busses full of senior citizens and school busses full of high schoolers; family groups, sometimes three generations; church groups, and singles and couples of all ages. As to the second question, well, we’re still not sure.
As for the play itself, I would have to agree with those who rave about the spectacle of it. The dancing is marvelously energetic. The scene in which Jesus is whipped is powerfully evocative and realistic. And the crucifixion is spectacular: the cross, illuminated by a thousand small light bulbs (like a theatre marquee) swings down as Jesus shoots up into the air on a small mechanical pedestal until he appears to be set against it. It’s gaudy-brilliant, so clever and stunning that it evokes wild cheers from the audience.
But we do not—usually—go to a play just for spectacle and technical brilliance. We want to be captured by a story. In literature we use the phrase “willing suspension of disbelief.” For that to happen, the story one is watching must have an inner coherence that allows the audience—in this case, me—to surrender to the story. Jesus Christ Superstar does not have that, at least not for me.
Unfortunately, the Jesus of this rock musical does not have a clue about who he is. But the musical makes pretty clear who he is not. He is not the son of God. He is not the savior of the world. He is not the raiser of the dead. He is not even the healer of the sick. (The lepers that he encounters are still lepers after he touches them—but happier lepers.) The actor who portrays Jesus walks around with a blank face most of the time and seems puzzled about what he is supposed to be doing.
Judas Iscariot is the one who almost has it all together. He knows who he is and he thinks he knows who Jesus is or who he should be. Even after he hangs himself, he comes back to stage life in a jazzy electric blue suit singing “Superstar”: “I don’t understand/How you let the things you did/Get so out of hand.”
According to lyricist Tim Rice, Jesus Christ Superstar is essentially a love triangle with Judas and Mary Magdalene vying for Jesus’ attention. And the directors of the Stratford production have attempted to highlight that tension in their production. Much of the action and many of the song lyrics try to develop this non-biblical motif, and the result as they try to blend it with the biblical elements of the Christ story is an incoherent story line.
But the great dissonance in the Superstar story (this will surprise no one who remembers it from the 60’s) derives from the fact that Jesus is “just a man.” He has no supernatural powers; he hasn’t a clue why he has to die; he seems weak and needy most of the time. What makes him a superstar? What attracts all those followers, especially his disciples?
One theme that struck us as downright funny—though it is not intended to be—is the apostles concern for fame. It’s as if Rice takes the hunger for stardom that motivated so many 60’s rock stars and transfers it to the apostles and even to Jesus. This lyric, for example, makes one giggle even as it is sung ever so seriously by the apostles:
“Always hoped that I'd be an apostleKnew that I would make it if I triedThen when we retire we can write the gospelsSo they'll still talk about us when we've died”
Even Jesus seems motivated by the desire for fame and a place in history:
“I must be mad thinking I'll be remembered - yesI must be out of my head!Look at your blank faces! My name will mean nothingTen minutes after I'm dead!”
I went to the play with just the slight hope that it might be faith-affirming, and in a small, strange way it was. In Jesus Christ Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice give us such a mish-mash of the Biblical story, such a bland Jesus wandering about in confusion, that one wonders why anyone would have followed him. Because the story does not hold together, I am not caught by it; instead, I am irritated. Still, because I instinctively contrast it to the great Biblical narrative, I am reminded of what I have always known and believed: the grand narrative of scripture, culminating in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the redemption of the cosmos, does have an inner coherence. And throughout history, millions have found it absolutely believable.
C. S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity, “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said [“your sins are forgiven”] would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell.” Rice and Webber and the directors and producers of the Stratford Theatre production of Jesus Christ Superstar have given us a poached egg Jesus. And, though I did not gag on it, I was not nourished by it.
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