THE SCRIPTORIUM™

We made him a type of Everyman. Judas did not think of himself as a traitor. He did what he did, not because he was basically evil, but because he was intelligent. He could se Christ becoming something he considered harmful to the Jews. Judas felt that they been persecuted enough. As far as what Christ was saying, general principles of how human beings should live together – Judas approved of this. What Judas was worried about was that as Christ got bigger and bigger and more popular, people began switching their attentions from what Christ was saying to Christ himself. They were saying that Jesus is God, here is the new Messiah, and Judas was terrified because, a.) he didn’t agree with it – he thought Christ was getting out of control and it was affecting Him, and b.) Judas reckoned that if the movement got too big and people began worshipping Christ as a god, the Romans who were occupying Israel would come down and clobber them.

– Superstar lyricist Tim Rice

The play represents a confused and commercial portrait of Christ – a Christ that does not rise from the dead. Of course, the Christ the authors present would not have risen from the dead. They are not men of faith, and their statements only serve to undermine the scriptures. I have not seen the show, and my objections are based on what friends who have seen it tell me.

– Minister Dennis Miller, Calvary Baptist Church

Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar set the world buzzing when it first appeared on vinyl in 1970 and on Broadway in 1971. The executives at MCA Records were terrified by it. In reaction to the single "Superstar," one MCA exec said, "A song like that will offend everyone." Another said, "If we put that record out, every churchman in the country will stone us." It made one secretary cry, who said, "It’s sad when a company like Decca [owned by MCA] has to make money by making fun of Jesus!" Later on, the film’s director Norman Jewison would say, "My hope is that audiences will take this for what it is – an opera, not history. These kids are trying to take Jesus off the stained-glass windows and get him down on the street. Some people are not going to like that." As author Robert Short put it, "It is a complete misunderstanding to view Jesus Christ Superstar as an expression of anyone’s answer… Its purpose is, first, to put to Jesus the question we have today about the meaning of life, and second, to put this question in our own way of putting it." Tim Rice did with this story the same thing that clergy across America do every Sunday morning: remove it from its distant past and foreign culture and give it resonance and relevance to the issues and obstacles we face every day.

Les Misérables  is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century. In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original French title, which can be translated from the French as The Miserables, The Wretched, The Miserable Ones, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, or The Victims. Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, focusing on the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption.

 

The Phantom of the Opera is a musical written by the famous composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is generally considered one of his greatest works after Cats and Jesus Christ Superstar. It is also considered one of the greatest pieces of musical theater because of its clichés, reprises, generally annoying characters that spend most of their stage time crying and or whining, reprises, its lack of singers that remember how to articulate anything and reprises. All very common themes explored in many if not all of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals. Time for another reprise, Mr. Webber? I feel so too.

It is also currently the longest-running show in Broadway history. This just goes to show that just because everyone is doing something consistently for a very long time, does make it right. It just recently surpassed Cats, another fantastic musical.