Small Booze

Happy Week between Western Easter and Eastern Easter, everybody!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but my take on Easter (either one) is that if Christ rises from the grave, he's a Zombie. This is plain and simple math in my book. 

Logical consequence:  

When one rises from the dead, one is classified as a Zombie.

Jesus rises from the dead.

Therefore, Jesus is a Zombie.

Thanks to David Fitzgerald for posting this on FB.

This was kind of a banner year for my traditional Easter gathering. Not only zombies but it was also April Fool's Day AND my cat's birthday. Amazing.

But the cherry on top of this monumental day was the once-in-a-lifetime event - NBC's live performance of Jesus Christ Superstar, starring John Legend, Sarah Bareillis and Alice Cooper. WHAT??? Sign me up.

If you know me at all, you know I live for these train wreck events. They almost never fail to deliver in their absurdity - although The Wiz was pretty "meh" (see my thoughts on it here:   ) I think I've seen every one of them except A Christmas Story. I guess I just didn't have it in me last December to brave it.

I admire that NBC tries their hardest to bring a bit of Broadway to television - I mean everyone has to have goals, right, no matter how lofty?  So here goes.

Jesus Christ Superstar - aired April 2018

Too bad you can't see Alice's shoes.

I had been seeing the commercials for this show for weeks and every time I thought, "Alice Cooper looks NUTS". So of COURSE I was going to watch.

This year's Easter gathering was no less boozy than any other year so my NBC live event partner-in-crime, Beth and I tipsily cleaned up the party detritus and sat down to watch the spectacle. Beth's husband Todd was a hard NO on this one so he left before it even started.

I'm going to start by saying that I'm not a big fan of Andrew Lloyd Weber. It's not like Sondheim where his music actually pisses me off, but it rarely resonates with me.  There was a tribute to him on NBC for his 70th birthday last week (and to garner interest in the show, I imagine. Sorry Andrew - HBD!!) so I learned a bit of Weber history. JCS was originally created as a concept album and, once it gained popularity, it became a stage production, debuting in 1971 with Ben Vereen playing Judas! Essentially, it's a rock opera.

So, picture this. Beth and I are sitting on my couch, a bit drunk. Neither of us are religious so we are kind of spotty on the events leading up to the crucifixion and it had been a long day of brunching so our attention span left a bit to be desired.

In one of the first songs the lyric is "Cool your face down". Beth looked at me and said "What the fuck does that mean?" I raised a knowing brow and said "The 70's" like that explained anything at all. Apparently this was good enough for Beth and set the tone for the remainder of the musical. 

Let's be honest - musicals that have no spoken dialog are tough even when you are 100% paying attention so you all can imagine how this went.

I think the set designer and costumer were both trying to make the look updated and relevant. The set design ended up looking a lot like the sets for Rent - industrial stripped down scaffolding. And the costumes were, I think, trying to invoke the feeling of the flower child era with an updated feel. In the end, I kept thinking it looked like JCS meets Mad Max and Beth called it Jesus Christ Burning Man. Which is decidedly singable, actually.

The next batch of costuming that caught our eye was Caiaphas and his gang. They are mean guys so they look like they belong in the Matrix with long, black, plastic-looking coats and interesting hairdos. 

Don't even get me started on Pontius Pilate and his purple pleather. He's an alliteration gone bad.

Our final comment on costuming were the lepers. Beth dubbed them "Lepers by Hot Topic".

About an hour out from the end, past Blogguest Linda texted me, asking if I was watching. This was a blessing in disguise because she was able to clarify some plot points for us. Plus, we could commiserate on feeling like Jesus was being portrayed as really whiny and a bit douchey, quite frankly. There was one odd bit in the middle where Mary Magdalene was bringing all the disciples white scarves. We asked Linda what the significance of the scarves were, but she could only offer that perhaps they were on sale?

Please note that I've refrained from discussing the acting but I can remain silent no longer! John Legend is lovely to look at and I really like that one song about his wife, Chrissy Teigen (who is amazing - check out her Twitter posts) but I'm not going to give it to him as an actor. After Jesus had been whipped by the crowds I turned to Beth and mentioned that he had the same facial expression as he did at the beginning of the show. Also, much of his "acting" was breathing in a staccato rhythm and hunching over.

But most disappointing? Alice Cooper. As King Herod, he only had one song and the most we could say about it was Linda texting "Check out Alice's shoes!" Yup.

(My drink pairing for this production and any dead-rise-from-the-grave party is the aptly named Zombie cocktail.)

My takeaways:

#1 - I named this post Small Booze because I did an adult Easter egg hunt and that's what I was calling the airplane-sized bottles of hooch.  

#2 - Even though I am constantly disappointed by NBC's live shows I will continue to give them a chance. That must be true love, right?

#3 - As far as rock operas go, give me Tommy any day of the week.

xoxo...hashtagSueslife