Other than the slightly-better-handled Grease! Live production last…year…a few years ago? Time passes too quickly. Anyway, other than that, most of the live productions I’ve seen on television for musicals have been…ehhhhhh. Between musicals I hate (sorry, Sound of Music fans) to staging productions entirely without audiences or without people who have any kind of experience with musicals in the first place, it’s been pretty hit or miss.
And then they decided to tackle one of my favorite shows, Jesus Christ Superstar.
And I tried to review it during the show, I did. I tried to take notes. Except this is mostly what I ended up with, and I decided to just share it with you verbatim because one, Monday Manda is just like you know what, let’s let Sunday Manda do what she does:
Love the highlighting the musicians in the overture
Jesus entrance YAAAAAASSSS
After one line “he’s such a good judas already”
Holy shit John legend is amazing as Jesus
Ensemble is on FIRE
Sara!.! And that DRESS!!!
Holy shit caiaphas is hip hop as fuck. This is amazing.
Hosanna was fucking beautiful
Another commercial already? And without the background view?
The temple scene was beautifully staged with the glitter, the cameras, and the beggars, all wonderful
Sara really seems to GET Mary
King herod was delightful in spite of my misgivings
Death of judas deserved more but he did great with it
Flogging handled well
Judas made up for it with his big reveal
Can’t believe they got crucifixion on network television. Very gospel, very church
Cuts to people in crowd were wonderful
I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THR LANTERN
They brought violinists out front for finale it’s nice
Large scale set design is beautiful like whoa
So, yeah. There you go, coherent journalism from yours truly.
Did you love the show? Hate it? Let me know in the comments!