04.06.2007
THE JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR JUNKIE
WHAT DOES THE LENTEN SEASON HAVE TO DO WITH ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER, BASTI ARTADI, NOEL CABANGON AND RICO BLANCO? JOELLE JACINTO WRITES ABOUT THE MUSICAL THAT BECAME A HOLY WEEK TRADITION
It’s the Lenten season: time to fast, abstain and watch Jesus Christ Superstar. I’m serious. JCS has been a tradition with me since I was a kid (the movie came out a year before I was born), so much so that a lot of my religious beliefs were molded by this musical. While kids my age went around thinking Judas was a traitor, I believed that Judas really did want to help the poor and I’m still very sure he went to heaven, like he did at the end of the musical (“Did you know your messy death would be a record breaker? Don’t you get me wrong, I only want to know…”) And while I believed Peter was the right hand man of Jesus, I also believed he owned a pair of white tennis shorts. In this way, you could say, the story of Christ became real to me. Funny, but it works, no?
I also believed that they could sing their hearts out, all of them. I can’t pick one favorite—while I of course think Jesus is in a league of his own entirely, Judas always steals the show from him. A friend once showed me the original sheet music as notated by Andrew Lloyd Webber himself and pointed out that Carl Anderson’s vocal stylings soar quite far from the original prescribed notes. If I had a voice like Carl Anderson’s, I’d probably do the same thing.
But oh, we’re talking about the music, yes. The music was, and is, phenomenal—while driving to the province on Holy Week, we’d listen to the soundtrack in the car and all of us, from my dad to my baby sister, sang along. We knew this Andrew Lloyd Webber musical word for word. We even knew the dance steps. Tradition, I tell you. (Yes, I know that’s another Norman Jewison movie, but it’s Holy Week, so we stick to this one).
Another thing I loved about Jesus Christ Superstar was discovering that it was a tradition for other people, as well. It was sort of a surprise to me because I don’t know of anyone in my Catholic high school that knew about (much less liked) Jesus Christ Superstar—if they did, they just didn’t talk about it, I guess. But after college, it was like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting: “Hi, I’m Joelle and I love Jesus Christ Superstar”—and everybody would share experiences. That was around the time I saw the 70s Bistro Jesus Christ Superstar gigs, two years running with Noel Cabangon as Jesus, and the Atlantis version set in the 20th century with Basti Artadi as the Son of Man. Seeing our local rockstars (and popstars) take on characters I loved was such a trip, though some did better than others.
In 70s Bistro, the performers who shone included Cabangon as Jesus, Kevin Roy as Judas, Jazz Nicolas as both Herod and Simon the Zealot, and Jett Pangan as Pilate. Jazz, whom I didn’t know personally then, was originally just going to be Simon, but Papadom was sick and unable to perform, so Jazz filled in as Herod also, pushing the gay up 200% and turning in one of the most memorable performances of the evening. A year later, Joey Ayala and Aia de Leon were cast as Caiaphas and Annas respectively, except the great folk singer and one of my favorite female vocalists didn’t seem to rehearse together so their repartee was not as inspired as we thought it would be.
The Atlantis show of course featured a bunch of theatre celebrities, particularly Robert Seña as Judas, Bituin Escalante as Magdalene, Anna Fegi as Pilate, and a total newbie in Basti Artadi as Jesus, justified by the fact that aside from looking the part, Basti was the biggest rockstar of that era. The theatre people, worried that Basti might not hit the “Why?” high note in “Gethsemane (I Only Want To Say),” wouldn’t let him even try to hit it, thinking that he could compensate by singing the last word of “See how I die…” throughout the instrumental part in the movie where they show different pictures of Christ’s passion. Of course, it was an impressive note-holding, but we wanted that high “Why?,” dammit. I think only a week after the run of the Jesus Christ Superstar shows were through, I was watching a Wolfgang gig where they covered Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” and Basti was hitting the “Aaiiiyaaah” effortlessly, and that was higher than the “Why?” that was not hit and I was grumbling about it pretty much the same way I’m doing right now.
70s Bistro doesn’t stage their Jesus Christ Superstar specials anymore. I heard something like it was too much of a bother to get everyone together to practice and it was too tiring to organize. I hope it gets revived soon, especially with the resurgence of the music scene and all the new faces and voices that would make a great Magdalene, a great Judas, a great Pilate, a great Jesus. For example, Armi Mallare would probably kick ass as Magdalene. There are a lot of other frontwomen right now, though, who could fight her for it. And Jazz could probably try out the other, more major characters this time around. I heard he has a pretty adequate falsetto.
For now, I guess, I’m just watching the video on our DVD player. And on our road trip to the province this Thursday, we’re gonna be our very own cast of Jesus Christ Superstar, singing Judas and Jesus and Pilate at the same time, hitting “Why… should I die” as high as we can. You should try it, too.
Photo of Basti Artadi by Eric Fernandez.
TAGS: jesus christ superstar basti artadi carl anderson noel cabangon bituin escalante jazz
