 |
|
EXPLORING
THE LIFE OF JESUS, THE MAN IT'S NOT EASY being the Son of God. But the challenges aren't necessarily what you'd expect. This, according to Glenn Carter, who is playing the role of Jesus in the Broadway revival of "Jesus Christ Superstar," which opened Sunday at Broadway's Ford Center for the Performing Arts. "I don't play God, and I'm not playing 2000 years of Christian history," Carter said in the Broadway offices of the show's publicity firm. Despite the black leather jacket and charmingly goofy sneakers, the British actor, who also played Jesus in a London production, possessed a vaguely Christlike air. Partly it was the long, curly hair that, it turned out, Carter has worn throughout his adult life. But there also was the manner, reflective, articulate and softspoken-although this last was no doubt related to the Herculean demands put on his vocal cords eight times a week. What Carter is playing is, by his lights, "a man in an extraordinary situation." In fact, he pointed out, the responsibility of establishing Jesus' divinity really belongs to the rest of the cast, since it is their rapt attention to him that signals his divinity to the audience. In "Superstar," the rock opera that launched the careers of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jesus is not even sure that he is the Messiah. ("That's what you say," the character responds whenever he is asked if he is God.) "Every time Jesus sings," said Carter, "everyone looks at him. Not just the audience, but the cast, too." To increase the pressure, Jesus' numbers are often sung a cappella or with minimal orchestration. Not to mention the wails and shouts that Jesus lets fly as he is betrayed by Judas, sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate, flagellated by the Roman guards, forced to bear his own cross and, finally, crucified. In this production of "Superstar," such torments are not coyly alluded to; they are dramatized with extreme realism. The verisimilitude of violence, maintained Carter, is key to the play's meaning. "We all learn that Jesus preached and then died for our sins," Carter said, "but how did he get from here to there? What was the reality of the situation?" During the 39 lashes, Carter continued, he could have played the beating in a "spiritual way," as if he were absorbing the blows without suffering, but he wanted it to appear "physical, to be real." This production of "Jesus Christ Superstar," directed by Gale Edwards, is returning to Broadway for the first time since its premier in 1971. For Carter there's no sense in a revival if the show isn't relevant. But Jesus the dissident, the espouser of freedom who is persecuted for his beliefs, strikes the actor as eminently relevant in a world where totalitarian governments repress free speech. "Even today," he said, "we violate people who disagree with the party line." The societal dysfunction most striking in "Superstar" is surely the herd mentality evinced by Jesus' followers. At the beginning of the show, they are falling over his every word, but by the second act they are urging Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, to crucify him. "The show plays with our attraction to celebrity and spectacle," said Carter. He recalled that the West End production was produced around the time Princess Diana died. "She had crashed, was dying. While a doctor was trying to help her," Carter remembered hearing on the news, "a photographer was pushing his camera into the car." In "Superstar," the image of the heaving, bloodied Christ on the cross is terrifying, repellent, yet we cannot look away. The company and, by extension, the audience, said Carter, "get seduced by the idea of the crucifixion." The seduced audience is doubly taken aback when Jesus appears moments later to take his bow. How does Carter get cleaned up so fast? "They've got wet towels backstage. The blood comes off pretty easy, though not the bruises," he said. "And, I wear a really big robe." |