Updates and Weekends

First of all, the weird phone calls have stopped on our home line. Brent is convinced that a line got crossed on Thursday and that's what caused the problem. I'm not sure. I will be interested in seeing what our answering machine looks like tonight.

Our weekend was fairly peaceful. Friday night, we were total sluggs. Saturday, we slept in and then dolled ourselves up and went to see a production of Jesus Christ Superstar at the OC performing arts center (I'm still processing this and will write more on it later). Sunday, we picked Cal up and took him to church with us, as Brent's pastor was starting a series of classes on Celtic Christianity and Cal was interested in sitting in on them. After class, we took him to lunch and dropped him off at home (picking up our copy of Stardust) and headed home. The afternoon was filled with naps and general laziness.

Perhaps the best part of the weekend was watching the new film adaptation of Ballet Shoes. The original book, by Noel Streatfeild, was one of my favorite books as a child. I read both of its sequels, Theater Shoes and Movie Shoes, as well as many of her other books, but Ballet Shoes was always my favorite. A mini-series was made of the book in 1975 for the BBC (which I have a copy of) but it lacked some the spirit of the book.

So you cannot imagine how delighted I was to hear that the BBC was producing a new version on film, starring none other than Emma Waston, Hermione of the Harry Potter films. Also in the cast are Yasmine Paige, who co-stars in The Sarah Jane Adventures, Marc Warren (Mr. Teatime from Hogfather), Emilia Fox, Gemma Jones, Harriet Walter, Eileen Atkins, and Richard Griffiths, who seems to be working with a lot of his young Harry Potter co-stars recently (he played the psychologist in the recent stage production of Equus with Daniel Radcliff). I was hoping that it would be better than the previous attempt and I was not disappointed.

Although they did take some liberties with the adaptation, including condensing the time line and making all three main characters older, they did a fantastic job potraying the gaudy-ness of the 1920's stage world and the gave both Emma and Yasmine places to shine (Lucy Boynton, who played the 3rd sister, also did a very good job, but is a relative unknown). They did add a slightly clumsy romance (the older film version did as well) but it did not distract from the excellent performances all around. The only sad bit was that they had the girls (with the exception of Boynton) do very little actual dancing, but that was to be expected, as that would have required a great deal more training than the shooting schedule allowed. I was willing to put up with the exchange for the excellent acting. We downloaded it but if it ever becomes available on region 1 DVD, it is going into the perminent collection.

"Jesus Christ Superstar, Do You Think You're Who They Say You Are?"

Jesus Christ Superstar is one of my favorite musicals of all time. I discovered it my parent's record collection at age 5 and became addicted to it almost immediately. And the recording I'm talking about is the original recording with Murry Head and Ian Gillan, not one of the cast recordings from later on. It was, along with the Beatles, my very first exposure to rock music and has shaped my tastes in many ways. Musically, its hard driving and sometimes violent. Vocally, its brutal to sing. If you don't have the chopps, don't even try. It is an opera in every sense of the word, just without the classical underpinnings. It is, in my mind, the best thing that Andrew Llyod Webber has ever written. He's been going downhill ever since.

I've seen the show 4 times on stage. I've seen both film versions. Just for the record, I HATE the 1973 film and LOVE the 2000 film. And I believe that it is a completely secular work. It is a commentary on stardom, not god-hood. And it should stay that way.

So you can imagine my horror at the version of the show we saw on Saturday.

To begin with, it starred Ted Neeley as Jesus. Neeley played Jesus in the 1973 film, which would have been a turnoff for me anyway, but he is now too old to play the role. His voice died halfway through the performance and he was screechy and unpleasent in one of the most important solos of the entire show, the Gethsemane scene. He lacked the charisma that a younger man brings to the role. I found myself wondering why anyone would follow this version of Jesus anywhere or find him the least bit attractive.

Then they cast a tenor in the role of Caiaphas, a role that is usually sung by an operatic bass. His voice kept breaking throughout the performance, ruining any interaction with the priests.

There were lyrical changes. I know some of them were made in the transition from concept album to stage and from stage to film (1973) but there were some that stood out as being more recent. This bothered me as well.

But worst of all was the religious message. That's right, the religious message. Tim Rice was quoted as saying "The idea of the whole opera is to have Christ seen through the eyes of Judas, and Christ as a man, not as a God." when the show first premiered on Broadway. Now the show has Jesus performing miracles during the overture and has a resurrection scene at the end, during the instramental "John Nineteen:Fourty-One". Several songs were re-arranged to make them sound more like praise songs and there were random Amens thrown in everywhere! I noticed the change in tone in the first act and commented on it to Brent, but he said he didn't see it. He changed his tune when they raised Jesus from the stage on wires and dropped the Shroud of Turin from the ceiling at the end of the show.

I was horrified and devistated. Webber and Rice's vision of the show has been destroyed in order to make it more comfortable for the Fundementalist Christian Majority. It was artistic rape, pure and simple!! And this is a touring show. Thousands of people are watching this travesty and thinking its message is about Jesus the God, instead of the destructiveness of stardom.

The one bright light in the whole miserable experience was Corey Glover, the lead singer of Living Colour, who was playing Judas. He's also a tenor, so some of the songs had key changes to accomodate his voice, but Goddess, that man can sing! And he completely rocked the role in every way! If he hadn't been so spectacular, I would have walked out after the first act. He litterally saved the entire experience and I hope that he continues to do musical theater in the future (Tommy comes to mind at the momment) because he has real talent for the stage.

Now I need to find my copy of the 2000 film, with its vaguely cyberpunk setting and amazing voices, to clease my mind of this horror!