Running from January 16 to the end of the month, Hart House Theatre’s interpretation of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar is a boisterous reimagining of the messiah’s final days set within the tumult of the Occupy movement.
Though choosing to reimagine the production through the lens of a disgruntled and disenfranchised populist movement falls through in some key areas, the choice to modernize the production is admirable.
Beyond a non-descript bank building wall and a smattering of traffic gates and scaffolding, the set is quite barren and doesn’t serve the allusion as effectively as it might have. The perplexing decision to have characters Pilate, King Herod, Caiaphas, Annas, and their surrounding priests play as suited financial types seems to rob the narrative of some of its reason. Overall, the Occupy setting seems forced at times, and non-sensical at others.
However, what the show may lack in depth of storytelling, it absolutely makes up for in talent and activity. Notable performances include several debut Hart House actors including David Michael Moote as Jesus. Moote’s range as a singer is considerable, as he is given ample opportunity to demonstrate throughout the show. Other first-timers Harold Lumilan as Simon, James King as Peter, and Mark Gallagher as Annas bring additional talent and spectacle to a solid musical affair. Lumilan in particular deserves some praise for his vitality and excitement, which come through in spades when he leads the cast in a number halfway through the first act.
Leah Sutton as police, Bryan Kling as police, David Michael Moote as Jesus, Sheree Spencer as police, Stephanie Schmid as police. COURTESY OF SCOTT GORMAN
It is Aaron Williams, another debut performer, as Judas, and Saphire Demitro as King Herod, however, who stood above the rest of an already impressive cast. Williams makes for an exceedingly convincing Judas, belting out his frustrations with Jesus’ growing public persona and with it, the loss of the movement’s legitimacy, over wailing guitar. Demitro, on the other hand, steals the second act as Herod, petulantly testing the now captive Christ on his divinity during a more memorable number.
Other more experienced Hart House actors help round out the production. Claire Hunter and Jeremy Hunton put on commendable performances, with Hunter playing Jesus’ long suffering female companion Mary Magdalene, and Hutton as the internally conflicted Pilate, forced to condemn Jesus by the angry mob.
With the minor exceptions of a few technical incidents and a rushed transition or two — which are easily explained away as opening night wrinkles — the show seemed to go off without a hitch.
While the reinterpretation’s narrative seems lost at times, the cast and band prove themselves to be more than capable of overcoming and blowing the roof off over the course of the musically jam-packed evening. Audiences can expect to be wowed by the cast’s vocal chops and satisfied with a creative attempt to politicize one of Webber’s great works.
