I’m a big fan of JCSS… I’ve seen the movie an embarrassing number of times, and I’ve been to about half-a-dozen stage productions.
Anyway, my thoughts (can’t remember if I’ve posted this before or not so sorry if I have):
While Judas is alive he is always taking a political, pragmatic view of Christ’s popularity. His betrayal is motivated by a feeling that Jesus is out of control politically, and subsumed by “egotism”.
After his death, it seems to me that Judas is an avatar of the rational modern world. When he returns as a ghost, his words are anachronistic - he mentions that “Israel 4BC had no mass communication”, Mohammed, etc. An outsider’s view. His questions in the verse of the song JCSS are the questions we would like to ask the supernatural Christ.
Judas represents us, the audience.
Since many of the significant songs in JCSS are about the relationship between Christ and Judas, I theorise that, while for the most part narrative, the fundamental story is about the struggle between rationalism (even atheism) and spirituality.
He doesn’t return as a ghost. That’s Satan, and there is no real reason why its the same actor. I guess they just wanted to keep the same performer.
I think you are seeing the trees but missing the forest. Judas’ problem was thta he wasn’t going to put his trust in Christ even after everything that happened. That’s why he killled himself. He failed to trust that Jesus would believe him. He was too worldly, but I think that was a syptom of the real disease.
FWIW, I’ve always viewed this more in the light that jjimm has. I never saw the Judas actor coming back as “Satan”. Do you have a reference for that or was it your interpretation, smiling bandit?
The song has always been sung by Judas. Never Satan.
Basically, JCS was just Tim Rice’s idea to present the story from Judas’s point of view, trying to explain Judas’s reasons for doing what he did. It’s a valid interpretation, if not a popular one.
I always saw Judas in this production as being more concerned with the day-to-day salvation of the masses–feeding them, clothing them, getting political freedom for them. He thought that Jesus had the same goals, and failed to understand the spiritual salvation that Jesus stood for. In the end, he betrayed Jesus becasue he believed him to be the wrong leader–by gaining so much popularity, Jesus was bringing them to the attention of the Romans (as a threat to the peace), but, because Jesus would not use his popularity to get the crowds to fight, Judas thought they would all be killed, and he couldn’t let that happen. He had to choose between Jesus and the masses,and he chose the masses.
I don’t know if I’d see it as being between rationalism and spirituality, although I do see it as a reflection of the mind-body split in western thought (in this case, with mind and spirit being synonomous). Judas was concerned with the body–save the body and the minds will follow–Jesus with the mind–free the mind and what happens to the body doesn’t matter. In the end, Jesus has changed the world, but Judas is still a bit unconvinced that it was the right way to go, or even why it worked at all.
And I’ve never heard of the last song of Judas being sung by Satan, or even Satan singing through Judas, and in my younger, Christian days, I attended several retreats that used this music as the focus so that every aspect was discussed into the ground!
I love JCS and happen to have seen the current revival of it just last night, and I love dissecting it, but you’re missing a very important point in your analysis: The song “Superstar” predates the rest of the musical, so you can’t necessarily expect it to be 100% consistent with the rest. This site says:
My interpretation, the flashy clothes, the singing starlets is Judas returning from Heaven.
Judas does bad things, but for what he believes are good reasons. In his last living song he realizes that he has caused Jesus death, not forced him to reveal himself and become the ‘King of the Jews’ in an earthly way. But he also understands that this was God’s requirement
He sings “God why have you forsaken me, why have you used me for your crime, your foul bloody crime”
So even Judas is saved, because what he does is necessary from God, and God (Jesus) bares his sins.
Judas Ghost song, is questioning why Jesus the person (whom he loved) had to suffer such a terrible death, and why wasn’t it possible to achieve what he did without dieing in such a way (something which Buddha and Mohammed seemed to him to have done).
I like the way the show tries to explore the idea that without Judas and his betrayal, Jesus would not have been arrested and executed. That in fact Jesus and God needed Judas to do what he did and maybe Judas was a part of God’s plan.
Have you ever thought it strange that Jesus performs no miracles in the play. He doesn’t even rise from the dead.
This is one of my favorite musicals…who doesn’t love an angel in hotpants?!
It takes place during the last week of Jesus’s life…I suppose the only “miracle” that takes place is when he changes the bread and wine into his body and blood at the Last Supper…man I wish we had THAT kind of bread at Catholic school (what’s that in the bread, it’s gone to my head…)
In the libretto that comes with the original album the speech prefix for the song reads “Judas/Everyman” – which I guess is what jjimm is getting at, isn’t it?
BTW, I’m a recovered Webber fan and JCS is about the only one of his musicals I still genuinely like. Great stuff – a few weeks ago at Mass the priest actually referred to it during the homily (positively; he actually recommended it). I got a kick out of that.
In Robert Graves’ King Jesus (Amazon Link), that’s also how Judas was portrayed, but not just as the person destined to help Jesus fulfill his mission–as the person selected by Jesus to do so.
Though Herod does (scornfully) reference miracles: “Healing cripples, raising from the dead…” “changing water into wine…” “walk across my swimming pool…”
Yes he does reference them but there are no on-stage or on-screen ones by JC. The last bit of music takes it’s title is a chapter and verse from John. The verse is Jesus being laid in the tomb.
So why do you think Judas gets to raise from the dead but not Jesus?
Since one of the main accomplishments of JCS is to show Jesus the man, especially in his most human relationships (Mary, Judas, Peter), it seems entirely appropriate to me that it ends at his death.
In JCS Judas is the voice of rationality and pragmatism, while Jesus is a dreamer, obsessed with himself and the attention he draws. Judas regards the anointing of his feet as a waste of money, since the money could be better spent on the poor. Judas sees Jesus as a good man, but that he’s become more important than his message and that he’s causing more trouble than good, and would be better off just being the son of a carpenter. Jesus is portrayed as so wrapped up in himself and his ideas that he’s missing the immediate problem of the Roman occupation and how his actions will impact on the rest. Of course Jesus doesn’t perform miracles in the musical, because Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice did not regard Jesus as a god. We repeatedly hear him being referred to as ‘just a man.’ He was a man at the right place at the right time. Nothing more.
