Jan. 24, 2019
Saw Jesus Christ Superstar last night at the Orpheum theatre in crispy downtown Minneapolis. If you don’t know, Jesus Christ Superstar is the story of Jesus Christ’s betrayal by Judas and his eventual death as told in song written by rock opera god Andrew Lloyd Webber. The cool thing about this musical, though, besides the obviously cool story of Jesus’ betrayal and death, is that all of the actors and actresses are dressed in modern day street clothes.
In this modern re-dressing of the re-telling of the story of Jesus Christ, the costume designer, true to the spirit of past re-dressings of this classic re-telling, decided to dress our heroes and villains (Emphasis on plural villains. Shore, Judas does the dirty work but any Catholic worth his weight in wine knows of the Three Denials of Peter) in modern get-up. This time they decided to dress all of the Apostles as frat guys.
I can sort of get the fanaticism of following a cool person to the end of the world. I don’t have any radical ideas, but I get that to be a Christ-figure you have to have some pretty big plans and ideas. Rage energy and a wet tongue.
The whole point I am trying to get at here, though, I guess, is that this look isn’t cool enough to drum up a devoted following. To make this collage I just googled ‘man bun long tee shirt’. To get enough attention today I think Jesus Christ would have to dress crazy. Oh you’re telling me the dude at LA Fitness who grunts the loudest and just does bicep curls for hours everyday after work is Jesus Christ? (maybe)
This is a quick critique of a musical that sold out 7 nights in a row in Minneapolis and was produced and run by people who have been doing this all their lives. My take on it:
- I would’ve had JC dressed up crazy
- I would’ve had all the normies (the followers) dress in long boy tees and joggers
