theater

Jesus Christ Superstar

Messiah, Guitar Hero: Superstar Rocks on at the Neil Simon Theatre

Religion goes down so much more easily when it’s accompanied by guitar.

Innumerable youth-group leaders and Reform rabbis know this truth, and so does Jesus Christ Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s 1970 rock-opera passion play. But the nascent mega-musicalers’ first Broadway outing—Superstar originated as a British concept album, and then debuted here in 1971 before returning to the West End the following year—offers no gentle acoustic strumming. (Neither, blissfully, does it indulge in the bland, feel-good soft rock of Stephen Schwartz’s Godspell, playing this season in a nursery-school-on-speed revival.) No, Mr. Lloyd Webber’s tuneful, hook-filled, guitar-driven score instead provides an account of Jesus Christ’s final week that’s accompanied by scorching riffs, soaring vocals, some funky bass lines, and more than a little rock-god sex appeal. Read More