Jesus Christ Superstar Is Outstanding
By John Swartz
Mariposa Arts Theatre has done it again. Their production of Jesus Christ Superstar has to be seen, it’s fantastic. I could go on, excellent, incredible, you get the picture. If you don’t see it this week, I feel sad you will miss out on the great work your neighbours have done to reimagine this musical.
The thing about community theatre companies is there’s a lot more to have a performance for the ages than being in the cast on stage. It does start with the vision of a person, ore sometimes a very small group of people who can fit around a coffee table and dream. In this case it is director Ryan LaPlante who had the desire to put this on stage. He had the notion of how he wanted to see it presented and rounded up the people who could make it happen.
One thing most people don’t even think about when they are leaving the theater telling their friends how wonderful what they all just saw was, is the role the set figures in just as much as the leads and chorus do. I thought Brian Halbot used up all his knowhow and creativity with the set for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Apparently he’s got reserves. The set he designed spilled out onto the theater floor and up toward the lighting grid. Congrats to Brian, the crew who built it and Paul Baxter who painted it.
The genius of the set is there are four more points of entry to the stage for the cast. This gave choreographers Sheri Nicholls and Ashley Legedza more options to get actors onto and off stage. I joked afterward I didn’t see anyone in the chorus ensemble run into each other, which is to mean they were very well prepared for what they had to do and had their focus on the task at hand. This is something MAT has excelled at for some time, the cast is prepared and rehearsed very well regarding where they need to be and how they need to move. With 25 cast members on stage at times, dancing about and failing their arms around, it only takes one to miss a cue to either be noticed when they shouldn’t be, or cause a cascading series of other mishaps.
One might come away thinking the costuming was easy since most of the cast wore ‘street clothes’ to start and for most of the play, but sharp observers would have noticed they changed their street clothes a few times, and many of them also changed into ‘traditional’ costumes as well. The amount of coordination backstage to get people out of and into their next costume must have been almost worth the price of admission if we could have seen what was going on.
The 11-piece band was split into two parts with keyboards, guitars and percussion (two of them) on the stage (stage right) but behind the backdrop, and the winds on a second level stage left. That’s a bit of a listening challenge and an issue to work around to see Christina Bosco conducting.
In the first half the band played perfectly. The balance between them and the cast members singing was pretty good. The second half, something changed and I’m not sure if it was at the mixing board, or if the players were just responding to the obvious excitement from the audience and over playing. Not by much, but enough at times they will need to watch those quieter passages. I did remark, at least we all know the music and the words, so nothing was lost understanding what was being sung as it would be with new music.
If I was to write a musical, I’d want to write an attention grabbing tune to open the show. One that serves notice something special is about to unfold. Something like Heaven on Their Minds. And then I’d want to have someone like Josh Halbot sing it. Holy cow, he killed it and darn near got a standing ovation – and there were 22 more tunes to go.
The next moment of wonder happened when David Jefferies sang Jesus Must Die. I’m sure one or two people thought, “I didn’t know anyone could sing that low,” as in pedal tones like a great organ could produce.
To close out the first half, Maggi Robertson, in her first performance with MAT, left people stunned at how beautiful it was when she sang I Don’t Know How to Love Him.
This play is so loaded with familiar music, Several other cast members carried the day with their moments to shine. Stephen Bainboroough turned his features into bits of humour both times he had the spotlight.
However, the stand out was Pam Sparrow as Herod doing King Herod’s Song. Originally it was not meant to be comic relief, but became so as the opera transformed to the stage. I have seen a few hilarious takes on presenting this song, but who knew LaPlante would seize from current events to incorporate into one of the funniest bits ever seen on Gord’s Stage – even before she sang a note.
And that’s part of the genius of how LaPlante saw this thing. There were visual references to things happening today that put this story into perspective previous productions could not have done. After all, think of what Norman Jewison would likely have done if only he’d taken 52 years to make his movie; the feast of current day government unrest provides so much fodder.
Just to drive the point home. The production starts before curtain with three people dressed as ICE Agents, but in black, invading the Green Room and authoritatively advising patrons to drink responsibly and ask other patrons for their papers. These three turn out to be the Roman soldiers in the play. At first I thought it was over the top, but sometimes I’m not as sharp and before vacating the Green Room I figured out what their purpose was.
Jesus is not the star character of this play. Well, he is, but he isn’t. If you Judas out of the script, there isn’t much there. Consequently Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice did not write any blockbuster songs for the character, played here by Mike Moreau. Sure a case can be made for Gethsemane, but in light of the earworm melodies and popularity of other tunes from the musical that is about the only time for Moreau to shine and give an emotional performance (which he did) with a technically difficult song, but the song is lost among the other tunes and the performance of it may not be appreciated as much. The performance of the Jesus character demands of a resolute, calm in the storm, kind of effort on stage.
The crowning moment was that instant when the band and Judas stop on a dime and the Soul Sisters take over with the familiar chorus. It was more breathtaking than the dazzling costume Judas wore.
The play runs Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings and there is a Sunday Matinee. Thursday’s performance is with the understudies taking over the main roles for a night. You can get tickets online.
(Photos by Deb Halbot) Main: Mariposa Arts Theatre’s Jesus Christ Superstar is on this week at the Opera House.
