The music of “Jesus Christ Superstar” has aged well during the past 52 years.
And its stage incarnation has proven to be a surprisingly malleable proposition, sometimes in interesting, but not always for the best, directions — a case in point being the current, still-touring 50th anniversary production at Detroit’s Fisher Theatre through Sunday, March 5.
Because it was an album before it hit the boards as a musical, “Superstar” has been a kind of open palette for producers and directors to play with as they visualize Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s celebrated, and sometimes controversial, rock opera loosely based on the gospels. We all know how the story ends, of course, but there have been no firm rules about how to get there as a musical.
This production — which visited the Detroit Opera House during February of 2020 — offers a bold and provocative, if flawed, post-modern reimagination of the work. It’s undeniably energetic and even engaging in spots, but also often messy and gratuitously overwrought, with many characterizations that don’t quite hit the mark. The tweaks to the songs themselves are largely inoffensive, but the 95-minute production, staged without an intermission, struggles to inspire the passion from which it comes and, unintentionally (we assume), often feels like a send-up.
Director Timothy Sheader’s vision of “Superstar” in a minimalist, Thunderdome-style environment, with nods to Norman Jewison’s 1973 film adaptation and the 2018 TV special “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert,” along with other pop culture references. Sheader’s Jesus, played this year by Jack Hopewell, sports a man-bun and occasionally pulls out an acoustic guitar; he’s one dab of patchouli oil away from the parking lot of a Phish concert. The ensemble costuming is straight out of the post-apocalyptic worlds of “Mad Max” and “Waterworld,” while High Priest Caiaphas (Isaac Ryckeghem), Annas (Kodiak Thompson) and their bare-chested cohorts hail from goth-metal central casting — the former strikingly like David Draiman of the band Disturbed, right down to the room-rattling bass vocals.
Nicholas Hambruch, meanwhile, plays a leather-jacketed, tattooed Pontius Pilate in a manner similar to Meat Loaf’s Eddie in “The Rocky Horror Show” — brawny with just a hint of tender — while Erich W. Schleck’s Herod, a bit U2 singer Bono’s Mephisto character during the late 90s, misses the campy relief mark, . And Drew McOnie’s choreography makes clear that he’s seen a few Michael Jackson videos. And the hand-held microphones, treated as sacred totems, and customized mic stands give this production the feel of a large-ensemble concert rather than a theater musical.
The hodgepodge makes “Superstar” 50 a mixed bag at best, working well in spots — particularly early on during the “What’s the Buzz,” “Everything’s Alright,” “Hosanna” and “Simon Zealotes” segments — but completely falling apart during the show’s final third. The glitter-filled “39 Lashes” depiction is imaginative and the Christ resurrection and reconciliation with Judas Iscariot (Elvie Ellis) is a satisfying conclusion, but neither is enough to redeem the clunky visual mayhem that surrounds them.
Hopewell and Ellis both have fine voices but fall prey to gratuitous volume and angst; both tend to explode rather than build into their most emotive sections, though Hopewell is mostly successful during his troubadour-styled “Gethsemane.” Faith Jones is a standout as Mary Magdalene, showing welcome restraint — and therefore making greater impact — during “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.” And Colin Robertson gets MVP points for displaying fine voice as Peter as well as adding instrumental touches on acoustic guitar and percussion.
The best news is that while “Superstar” can be bent, the compositional strength of Lloyd Webber and Rice’s songs insure that it will never break. The 50th anniversary production is flawed but not a waste of time and certainly leaves us wondering what other revisions lay ahead in the future.
The “Jesus Christ Superstar 50th Anniversary Tour” runs through Sunday, March 5 at the Fisher Theatre, 3011 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit. $41 and up. 313-872-1000 or broadwayindetroit.com.
