I’m a part of a local stage production of JSS this fall and I’m looking for interesting directorial ideas. The latest broadway attempt placed the characters in a contemporary atmosphere and was subsequently thrashed by the critics. I’m learning that people are far too fond of their attachments to the Jewison film production representation. After all, what fun is early 70’s rock music sung by punk rockers in, as one critic put it, “costumes straight out of an 80s gay bar.”
I watched a taped local performance last night that made herod a noel coward type with tophat and cane. It worked well. This show also featured a centre stage orifice that spewed gymnasts taunting judas, herod and his girls, and was christ’s ultimate resting chamber.
Another tidbit idea I saw somewhere was a set of actors representing “the fates” and doing things like giving judas the rope, helping nail christ, etc.
Any ideas from past shows you’ve done or seen would be quite appreciated.
I wish I could help you here, the only production I’ve been in used a multi tiered structure – similar to a hill, but of platforms, with an entrance in the center area. This was the basic background for everything, the crucifixion took place at the top of this structure.
lighting, caftans, the whole affair was pretty spartan.
If you can score some shots of the original Broadway production, that had some REALLY cool stuff in it, including some kind of large phychedelic cube that rose up from the stage with Jesus on top of it during “I only want to say”
I always liked the first American presentation of the stage show – at my high school four months before it opened on Broadway. Nothing fancy – just a straight version of the music in period dress.
I saw it on Broadway the next year, and they added a lot of flash, as though they didn’t trust the story.
I saw two productions when I was little - the original Broadway one and a fairly well-respected regional theater one.
The regional theater one had a basic Bible-period hill setting sort of like what ddgryphon described. The “fates” were dressed in solid black and the lighting of the scenes they were in was sort of dark so when they flitted about Judas they were very phantom-like. I thought it was pretty cool.
Of course I was a little kid and the spectacle of the Broadway production appealed to me, but the regional theater production was just as good. It’s more about the music than anything else.
Before they brought it back to Broadway, I thought about it and imagined what I would do if I was the producer or director or whoever it is that calls the shots. Being a musician and very fond of the JCS music, one thing I thought of was putting the band on stage either in the open or behind see-through screens and making almost a concert out of it rather than a traditional musical with the band in the pit. The thing is you can’t have musicians reading books or doing the crossword until their numbers come up. But the music can be so rockin’ that I think having a band on stage would add a certain amount of excitement to the whole production.
I’ve never been in it, but I’ve been to 5 different productions. Two things that stand out:
In the original London West End production, during the 39 lashes, Jesus was standing on a floor made of lit tiles. At each lash, a random tile turned from white to red, until the entire theater was bathed in a blood-red light. The tile on which he was standing remained white.
The latest touring production that I saw in Dublin had the Zealots dressed in paramilitary uniforms, with machine guns and berets.
I just realized that the characters everyone is referring to as the Fates are Judas’ Tormentors (at least that’s what they were called in the productions I’ve done.