Cynthia Erivo And Adam Lambert’s ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ Needs To Tour

This won’t be pleasant to hear, but if you missed Jesus Christ Superstar at the Hollywood Bowl this past weekend, you really lost out on seeing one of the more memorable stage extravaganzas that Los Angeles has witnessed in recent years.

For three nights on a Bowl set as dramatic and luminous as a tabernacle vision, the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice found life in a new form that at times felt like a full-blown conversion. With the Mercurial (and by that, I mean Freddie) Adam Lambert as Judas, an otherworldly Cynthia Erivo as Jesus (bold casting that outperformed even scriptural expectations) and a supporting cast that included no less than Phillipa Soo from the original Hamilton as Mary Magdalene and Josh Gad (Book of Mormon, Frozen) as Herod, the 55-year-old Broadway classic suddenly felt as if the heavens themselves had a hand in the production.

More Than An Update—An Arena-Scale Reinvention

Okay, let me walk that back a little. It was a fantastic show. But it wasn’t so much an update of the original 1970s rock opera as a one-of-a-kind arena-style blowout that let us see what these charismatic powerhouse belters could do with this vintage material. It’s the son of God for an era accustomed to Gaga theatrics. You want the Passion of Christ? This show will give you passion like you’ve never seen.

Of course, spectacle was part of the JCS program from the beginning. The show originated in 1970 when up-and-coming composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice teamed up to record a concept album that retold the last week of Jesus’ life through rock music, an audacious conceit that pushed the LP to the top of the Billboard charts. The following year, Jesus Christ Superstar premiered on Broadway and in London’s West End to mixed reactions. “Superstar seemed to me less than super,” The New York Times critic Clive Barnes wrote in reviewing the original. In 1973 Norman Jewison’s film brought the story to cinemas, complete with Carpenters’-style production values and standout performances by singer Yvonne Elliman and others.

From Concept Album To Cultural Touchstone

Through the ’80s and ’90s it enjoyed frequent revivals—most notably a 1996 West End run and a 2000 U.S. tour—before a critically acclaimed 2012 Broadway revival reintroduced it to a new generation. Since then it’s been mounted everywhere from regional stages to international tours, spawned a live TV concert in 2018 and continues to resonate. The themes of fame, betrayal and political theater haven’t exactly gone out of fashion.

Under the stars at the Hollywood Bowl, the gospel-tinged guitars and driving riffs were familiar from the album (you could see people of a certain age mouthing along to every single word). But director and choreographer Sergio Trujillo made sure this version never felt like a throwback. From the first strains of “Heaven on Their Minds,” Judas’ betrayal unfolded against a shifting backdrop of LED panels and pulsing lights, while the orchestra—directed by Stephen Oremus—loosed the score behind a digital curtain, from delicate flute solos in “Damned for All Time” to full-throated electric roars in the title number.

Erivo’s ‘Gethsemane’: A Standing Ovation That Offsets The Controversy

There’s been some online hand-waving around the “controversy” of casting a queer Black woman to play the Messiah, but please—Erivo as J.C. wowed audiences as dramatically here as in The Color Purple on Broadway or even on screen in Wicked. Her stirring, affecting wails and torch-ery on “What’s the Buzz,” “Everything’s Alright” and “The Temple” had a capacity crowd of 17,500 riveted, and that was before the three-minute, mid-act standing ovation Erivo got in the second half for “Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say).” People everywhere had tears streaming right along with Erivo’s.

Lambert, meanwhile, reveled in Judas’ arc from swagger to ruin, balancing streetwise regret with near-mythic torment. Could any other contemporary singer—aside from perhaps Gaga herself—bring the same combination of goth-rock swagger, heartbreak and glittery stoke to lines like: “You have set them all on fire / They think they’ve found the new Messiah / And they’ll hurt you when they find they’re wrong!”? I think not.

Why Jesus Christ Superstar Deserves An Even Bigger Stage

It’s not to say the show was perfect. People are still sniveling about poor John Stamos stepping in at the last minute on Friday night as Herod to “speak sing” the part for Gad, who was out that night with Covid-19 (Gad appeared to be making up for lost time on Sunday with Vegas-style over-the-top kitsch as the ruler of Galilee). And the choreography wasn’t exactly on the same epic level as the vocals.

But here’s my real gripe: Jesus Christ Superstar only got three nights. This thing could storm Broadway, crisscross the country or pitch an actual revival-tent tour and still pack the house for years. Don’t lose Erivo or Lambert, that’s for sure. But cut it loose from the Bowl and you’d have a transfiguring phenomenon on your hands—one that would keep the faithful and the curious coming back from now ‘til kingdom come.