New Bless This Mess: Jesus Christ Superstar (2000)
In honour of Jesus’ big day, I wrote frankly way too many words about the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, and more specifically, its not-super-popular 2000 adaptation.
THE SET UP
CW: some discussion of suicide
So, I love musical theatre.
If you didn’t know this about me, well, now you do. I had a recent reflection that my love for musical theatre might be partially related to my autism: don’t have to guess about character motivations when they sing about them! Themes literally come with musical cues! It’s great!
Anyway, like any self-respecting theatre fan, I have a complicated relationship with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Listen, I’m basic, I can enjoy me some Phantom or Cats or Joseph. But my one true ALW-penned love is and probably will always be Jesus Christ Superstar. I think it’s awesome, so much that I wrote a paper on it for a religious studies class I took in my undergrad. It chronicles essentially the last week of Jesus’ life, right up until his death on Good Friday.
And specifically, today, we’re going to dive into the 2000 filmed version of it, because it was the first version I saw when I was about 13 or 14, and therefore it has a special place in my heart. Is it the best version? No. (For my money, see if you can find a
bootleg“slime tutorial” of the production that went to Broadway in 2012, it’s the best by a huge margin and I will not be taking feedback). But I do come back to this version again and again, so let’s dive in.
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