The Belgian director’s revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar” showcases some of his signature aesthetic techniques. But it’s an odd pairing.
On a dark, featureless stage in Amsterdam, a soon-to-be-crucified Jesus Christ laments his predicament while sporting a shimmery tank-top and gray New Balance sneakers. His followers, gathered around him, look like they have raided an Urban Outfitters store sometime around 2012.
By stark contrast, his persecutors, led by King Herod and Pontius Pilate, wear severe white, floor-length robes and black coats. In an earsplitting falsetto, Jesus reproaches his father, God, for having put him in this position. As well he might.
This revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s kitschy 1971 musical about the last few days of Jesus’s life, is directed by the Belgian auteur Ivo van Hove. It’s an odd match.
Van Hove has built his reputation on aesthetically striking, often psychologically intense re-imaginings of well-known works — including canonical plays (“Hedda Gabler” and a riveting “A View from the Bridge”); golden-age Hollywood movies (“All About Eve”); and contemporary fiction (“Who Killed My Father” and “A Little Life”). And though his range is wide, there has always been intellectual ambition in his choice of subject matter: a serious interest in the poetics of human tragedy.
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Source: Theater - nytimes.com
