Resurrecting this post (hah) because of a conversation I had with my mother yesterday, when she asked me if I was going to go and see Sam Ryder as Jesus in the production that’s on at the Palladium
And I said yes, but actually I’m going to pop over to Belfast next year when it’s touring, to see it with my best friend (ex-evangelical Presbyterian Protestant northern Irish) who has never seen it because it was deemed as sacrilegious in her childhood, and anyway, I’m sure Sam Ryder will be great but Jesus Christ Superstar is never about who is playing Jesus: yes the Jesus casting is great, and Ryder is going to SLAP that high note in Gethsemane, but I’m more looking forward to seeing Tyrone Huntley’s performance as Judas
And mum was like…Alice why was your very Christian friend banned from seeing this very Christian musical, and also, why are you more excited about Judas?
I said, mum…this musical is about Jesus not being the messiah. It says it multiple times in the lyrics by multiple characters: he’s just a man. A good man, but just a man.
He is overwhelmed by the attention his work brings. In a crowd of the blind, the sick, the poor, the disabled, his response is to say don’t push me, don’t crowd me, heal yourselves: there are too many of you; there is too little of me; it is not my responsibility.
He screams to his God - NOT his father - in the garden of Gethsemane: WHY? Why should I die?
He is not the son of god.
He is simply a good man who has failed in his goals because not enough other good people give a shit.
This is why the musical is deemed sacrilegious and my friend has never seen it. But it’s also why I love it.
Judas is the main character and the compelling thing about this musical is that you are MEANT to side with him: he sees his good friend, he loves his good friend, he believes in the movement they have started: but the movement has gotten too big; the people’s faith in just one good man too strong. He is scared, he is frightened, he thinks they are on the brink of mass violence and death at the hands of the Romans.
He betrays his friend only because he loves his fellow people. He does something that he knows nobody will ever understand because of their fervent, zealous belief that Jesus is the messiah that will save them. Just watch Judas during the Simon Zealotes scene in the 1973 film. Simon insists Jesus has the power to defeat the Roman colonisers. The crowd insists Jesus will save them. Simon says all 50,000 of them will fight the Romans.
Yes it’s a cool dance scene. But watch Judas. He is horrified at this prospect of violence, at the deaths of thousands of people. The Roman army lurks in the background.
You are *meant* to be on Judas’s side. Or at least understand WHY Judas does what he does.
My mother was amazed at this. She asked me: even as a child, did you side with Judas? And was shocked when I said yes. The show might as well be called JUDAS: The Musical. Seeing it for the first time as a child was the first thing that made me question my own Christianity - and the inherent dangers of blind faith and belief without question and self-reflection. It’s an important part of my theological understanding.
She responded that Jesus (the musical character) performs miracles. I asked her when. She couldn’t say.
At this stage I’m wondering if she’s confused the show with Godspell: she insists not. That she’s seen both and that both have the same message about the goodness of Jesus - which I don’t disagree with, but it’s clear that the Jesus of Superstar is Just Some Dude Being A Dude.
And that is why it’s great.
Anyway my mum responded that she once got in a big argument with my grandma in her late teens about whether or not she was allowed to see Life of Brian in the cinema. Grandma insisted it was blasphemous, mum was set that it was so transparently clear that it was just a film about a Very Naughty Boy.
Anyway absolutely wild that for the past 25 years my mother and I have had a shared love of a musical that we interpret in completely opposite ways lololol
