Jesus Christ Superstar

Long Eaton Operatic Society performed Jesus Christ Superstar, a rock opera with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice, at May Hall, Trent College. Loosely based on the Gospels' accounts of the last week of Jesus' life, this musical focuses on Judas’ tormented relationship with Jesus as they take the journey into Jerusalem, ending in the betrayal and crucifixion of Christ. Taking the modern revamped approach, mirroring the recent revival tour, LEOS delivered a fine production of this emotionally gruelling musical.

Producer, Margaret Butcher, should be extremely proud of her creative team. I thought that the production quality as a complete whole, in particular the direction, was of an extremely high standard. Although that is of no great surprise considering experienced performer and first time director, Adam Guest, was creatively involved. Adam’s understanding of the stage, his overall vision for this production, and his final execution were excellent. General direction elements were solid, although the large cast were clearly difficult to work with and needed some further refinement. MD, Charlotte Daniel, certainly had her work cut out, evidently working extremely hard with the cast during rehearsals. The tempo was well controlled throughout; however I felt that the balance from stage and pit could have been much improved; largely hindered by technical support problems in the first half. There were also several noticeable score adaptations and octave changes, that I assume were implemented to meet the actors’ abilities, but the decision to do this did weaken some of the characters and the impact as a whole. The choreography, provided by Siobhan Parker, was arranged to a reasonable standard and generally catered for a large cast of differing abilities.

As a rock opera without dialogue, this musical requires a combination of powerful voices, broad vocal range, and superb acting ability. The clear achiever of this was Sam Barson, as Judas, who gave a sadistically superb natural interpretation of the character, singing with immense conviction and ease, performing on another level to those that he shared the stage with. Following up closely behind him was Graham Buchanan, who gave an interesting portrayal of Pilate; very much coming into his own during the second half and excelling during ‘Trial Before Pilate’. On the whole, I thought that this production was extremely well acted by the entire cast. In particular, Jesus (played by Mitch Gamble), who showed great emotion throughout, with depth and diversity of character; peaking during the crucifixion and its build up. Other strong principal performances of merit were provided by Zak Charlesworth (Simon), Phil Brooks (Peter) and Martin Briggs (Annas). The supporting ensemble all threw themselves into the spirit of the production with great enthusiasm and clearly enjoyed being involved in this fantastic musical.

Technically, this show would have been executed to an extremely high standard if it hadn’t of been for the various sound issues encountered during the performance, which really let the production down. The set was simple, visually consistent, and well sourced, enabling near-seamless transitions and good pace. The backstage work was handled well, with no noticeable interruptions to the action. Lighting was well planned and controlled. Finally, the use of the projection added to the overall aesthetics and the harrowing graphics were fantastic. Unfortunately, placing the projections to the side of the stage did draw the line of sight away from the action onstage and would have benefitted from being centralised, perhaps on a larger screen. That being said, it shouldn’t deter from the fact that this was an excellent touch that showed great creative vision and provided superb visual enhancement.

Overall, this was a hard hitting, emotional production, with some outstanding moments that was a pleasure to watch. From all at NODA, keep up the good work and we look forward to seeing your next production.

Show Report by Matt Fry

NODA Nottingham, District 3, East Midlands Region

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