..Do you really think you're what they say you are?

Friday night, I saw a production of Andrew Lloyd Weber's Jesus Christ, Superstar. It was a very good performance, although I have mixed feelings about the show in general. For those who don't know, JCS is a rock opera (a show that's entirely sung, to music that's a sort of rock/jazz/classical hybrid) about the last week of Jesus' life. The main problem with the show is that it portrays Jesus as being almost entirely human, as opposed to what he really was, all man and all God at the same time. An example of this is Jesus having a boyfriend/girlfriend type relationship with Mary Magdalene. Any Christian worth his zipper-bound Bible knows that isn't right. Another example is Jesus running away from a crowd of lepers who are clamoring for him to heal them. In the Gospel he really does heal them, he doesn't run away.
Andrew Lloyd Weber wasn't Christian, and he wasn't trying to write a historically accurate story of Jesus' life, in fact he may have made Jesus look human deliberately, perhaps for the sake of being avant-garde. Even so, people who are uneducated as to who Jesus really was may take the show to be a factual representation of his life. That's the thing that worries me. The show isn't history. It's entertainment.
As entertainment, anyway, the show was really good. The set was very well-built and interesting to look at, and fits the general mood of the show. The costumes were well done, as well (although those of the High Priests sometimes reminded me of Imperial soldiers aboard the Death Star in Star Wars, but that's just me). And the orchestra played all throughout the performance, and did well at it. While the story of his show is rather strange, the music is really something to listen to. And, last but obviously not least, the acting was great, and Judas (ironically, the largest role in the show next to Jesus. If you don't have a good Judas, JCS can easily flop) was very strongly acted, as was Jesus, and Mary Magdelene.

Jesus takes a snooze in Mary Magdalene's arms while Judas looks on with disapproval. Or something

And the numerous chorus members all played their parts and kept their focus. Overall, it was an excellent show, and if I could, I'd like to see it again.

Funny, I just realized, I wrote this whole post newspaper-reviewer style. Odd how you can just slip in and out of "writing character" like that.