JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL

Or: An apostle writing an epistle

1 and 3 August 2025, Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA

I was there.

Three words, and then some.

We frequently see people posting a link or photo on social media these days saying, “No words.” What a strange way to describe something so incredible, beautiful, sad, devastating, any or all of the above. “No words” – well, those are actually words. There are always words.

I did consider just posting all these photos with literally no words. But even though for a few days I felt challenged to find some original, revelatory words, I was not copping out. I had to offer some of my own words about what I experienced last weekend at the Hollywood Bowl. And here they are pouring forth.

First, I was at my favourite music venue anywhere in the world, my happiest place on earth (when I am not on Lanikai Beach, Hawaii). Secondly, I went to two of the only three shows. Thirdly, it was among the most overwhelmingly magnificent live performances I have ever seen in my life. Both nights combined. The photos here are from the final performance because I had an amazing up-close seat. I went to the first performance two nights earlier, seated much further back and relying a lot on the screens, because I knew that night would be history and I had to be there to experience it. As did Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ted Neeley and Yvonne Elliman. Over the three nights more than 52,000 people saw Cynthia Erivo, Adam Lambert, Phillipa Soo, Raúl Esparza, Josh Gad and their co-stars perform a tightly directed and choreographed, dramatically presented concert production of this 55-year old work that feels more relevant than ever.

“There must be over fifty thousand, screaming love and more for you.”

I wrote about my lifelong adoration of Jesus Christ Superstar, my favourite stage musical, the greatest rock opera ever, five years ago in relation to some house cleaning. I’ll refer to that piece a few times in this epistle, but if you are as adoring of Superstar as me, maybe go read it first: My Favourite Superstars.

My JCS imprint came from the almost-original Australian cast; my first experience was seeing it in 1973 in Sydney a year after its premiere, which had made it only the second major stage production of Superstar in the world, so it was very, very worthy and important. After that I listened endlessly to the Original Cast Recording with Ian Gillan and Yvonne Elliman, and then many more experiences of the Australian production in revivals through the ‘70s, and then in 1980 I caught the West End production before that closed at the Palace Theatre. It was a somewhat tired production by then, the London one, and I was underwhelmed by it. I was too tied to the versions I had known thus far. But the songs and the music would always be what kept it vital for me. And the Bowl last weekend was teeming with kindred spirit devotees who all had their own memories of first seeing the show, which singers they preferred in the key roles (many, many Neeley fans), and so many Jewish people like me for whom the show had served as a de facto New Testament.

More on that in a while. First and most importantly, this cast, these characters. Anticipated since first announced in February this year. Announced, in fact, on the day I flew from Sydney back to Los Angeles, where I am meant to be. An announcement made to beautifully confirm why being at driving distance to the Hollywood Bowl is compulsory for me to live a meaningful life.

First and foremost, Cynthia Erivo as Jesus. Not Jesus re-written in the lyrics to be a female, not that. More boldly playing Jesus exactly as the man he was portrayed as by Lloyd Webber and Rice: small, humble, softly spoken, self-doubting, questioning, brave, frightened, faithful. “He’s a man, he’s just a man.” If “Gethsemane” is not the most audacious, beautiful, truthful, imploring show-stopping stage musical song of all time, I don’t know what is. We all remember it for the Jesus Christ Superstar performance we first saw or heard. Ian Gillan, Trevor White, Ted Neeley, Paul Nicholas… Cynthia Erivo. There were actually people at the Hollywood Bowl whom I met that had never seen Superstar on stage or screen, not even heard the soundtrack beyond one or two songs. That could be a whole other essay, how anyone could get through life without having seen or heard Jesus Christ Superstar.

But regardless, to be in the presence of Cynthia Erivo singing it exactly as intended and yet with some modifications to the vocal emphasis was such a huge huge privilege. We all expected her to wail at “Alright, I’ll die! Just watch me die.” But that was the quietest and most sombre, resigned part of the song. And the despair, the weariness, the sheer tragedy of it (sorry, I am Jewish, so it seems miserably tragic to me that Jesus would have to die like that for any reason, let alone your sins) all encapsulated in that submissive, soulful, resigned, “Alright, I’ll die. Just watch me die.” Wow. Finishing on her knees, the first night was at least five solid minutes of standing ovation. Watching from further back on the screen, I saw the tears streaming down her face and I started to feel weepy. The woman next to me and I held each other. It was deeply, profoundly moving. On the third night, so much closer, I saw the tears again on Erivo’s face, and thought, well, she is either affected by the audience again, or as an actor has felt the emotion of the scene and is crying in character, or most likely, it is all of that and more. It is her last night playing Jesus in this epic production and maybe she never will again. Maybe it is that knowing also. At any rate, Jesus wept, and I was there, witness to it. Wow.

Adam Lambert, so perfect for Judas, the unmatchable vocal range in this guy, as evidenced in years and years of singing up Freddie Mercury’s storms for Queen and now put to brilliant use in another character. Possibly wearing his Queen outfits, as they looked interchangeable with his Mercury-inspired camp rocker stage attire. Up close I saw Lambert was somewhat hamming it – trying to rationalise telling and kissing, taking the blood money, regretting taking the blood money, grappling with remorse, strangling himself with guilt, driving himself into a frenzy where his only option seemed to be to hang himself – but all that over-exaggerated facial stuff was forgivable in the context of having to act a dramatic part, when Lambert is truly the modern rock god singer. His voice has always been theatrical, but in that Freddie way of being theatrical. Acting is a whole other skill and while he was no Jon English (read about his Judas here), Adam Lambert was vocally possibly the best Judas of all time. And Judas gets so many of the greatest lyrics. “Just don’t say I’m damned for all time.” Yeah, right, love.

The interaction between Jesus and Judas is vital. Physically, Adam Lambert towers over anyone. Next to, facing, Cynthia Erivo, he is a full foot taller, and possibly two or three times broader. He is a gorgeous hulk of a man. She is delicate like an insect, yet muscular and taut like an athlete, with her nails adding considerable length to her slender, angular arms. (I wondered if they would nail her nails to the cross but that would have been hammering the points.) If anyone would say “To think I admired you, for now I despise you” it would hurt. To see Judas sing it to Christ, that just takes one’s breath away. It is so much to take in. Christ doesn’t believe it. “You liar, you Judas.” But it’s been said. And it transcends any acting deficiencies.

The acting chops were well handled by Phillipa Soo as Mary, perfectly passionate and relenting, vocally pristine, motherly, sisterly and just a hint of lover-like sensuality in her affections to Erivo’s Jesus. Oh those women performing together, what a sight, what a beautiful, joyful sorrow they wrought.

Pilate, my absolute favourite character, played humanly by Raúl Esparza, dressed in purple of course, and fascinatingly dishevelled as the drama unfolded. I love, love, love so much his haunting first song, the ruminating, “I dreamed I met a Galilean, a most amazing man, he had that look you very rarely find, the haunting hunted kind.” Imagine the conversations over dinner Pilate and Christ might have had given what a thinker Pilate was in his Superstar depiction. Later, “Who is this broken man cluttering up my hallway”, probably my all-time favourite line in the entire libretto, was done to perfection. Refer back to one of the countless reasons I love this line in my earlier Superstar piece here.

“But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths – are mine the same as yours?”  A conversation to hear more of. If only Jesus had spoken up.

I saw both Herods. On the first night, John Stamos stood in (at very short notice) for Josh Gad, who was at the tail end of a Covid bout. Stamos can sing, and he did fine. He was a little slim and refined for the buffoonish character Herod has always been portrayed as in Superstar. Gad, a rotund and beloved musical comedy performer, returned on the second night and by the third night, when I was sitting next to his parents (yes, Josh Gad’s Dad!), it was a glorious, gorgeous interlude between the hideously horrific abuses of Christ that we see on either side of it. Golden and feathery and wickedly funny and lovely.

But the 39 lashes. Oh my. Did anyone else see Erivo’s staging, arms stretched out by ropes from either hand, as a reference to Kunte Kinte and every other slave whipped mercilessly in the visual depictions of American slavery on television and film over the last decades? Or am I stretching the comparisons too far simply because Jesus was being played here by a black person? Or is that one of the beautiful things about Superstar after more than 50 years, that the allusions are so plentiful?

The point is, the counterpoint to Herod’s garish Vegas-ish spectacle was never so stark. I only wish Esparza’s Pilate had washed his hands more literally. I have never, ever forgotten the sight of Australia’s mid-70s Pilate, Raymond Duparc, washing his hands in a transparent bowl and seeing the water turn red. That was a moment in theatre. At the Hollywood Bowl, Esparza made an act of washing his hands in dry air. But his hands made their point. “I wash my hands of your demolition. Die if you want to, you innocent puppet!”  That is always the climax of the show for me. My heart has always broken for Pontius Pilate.

Every other featured singer, including the mandatorily deep-throated Caiaphas played by Zachary James (his previous roles include Lurch in The Addams Family, natch) and the younger principals Milo Manheim as Peter and Tyrone Huntley as Simon, were impressive, rising to the stature of the songs.

It is always about the songs in Superstar, and so it is as much about the words as the memorable music. As I wildly but silently sang along to every word – every single word – as well as waving my arms, pounding my fists, clapping my palms and every other gesture that expressed every note of the instrumentation, I was jolted here and there when there was a diversion from the lyrics I know. Such as in “The Arrest”, when all the frenzied press reps call out questions.

“Did you pick an efficient team? Is that it for the Jewish dream?”

I thought these were new for this production but a quick search refers to them at least twelve years ago. I just had no idea. But to be sure, they are relevant. I wonder if Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber looked particularly at what libretto should be used for a Los Angeles production at this particular time. ALW’s Really Useful Company was intrinsically involved in association with the LA Philharmonic and the producers Neil Meron and Robert Greenblatt. I’d love to know what conversations went on about lyrics.

Earlier I was sure I heard extra lines in the “Moneylenders and Merchants” song, too, and elsewhere occasionally lines seemed altered, or even fumbled by the cast members. It was a lot, there was a lot to do, and the three nights were here and then gone, so any missteps could easily be forgiven. The band and the orchestra were insanely excellent in the hands of musical director and conductor Stephen Oremus. There is nothing quite like the horns in the Superstar score. Just before the aforementioned “Who is this broken man…” is one of the best descending horn lines in the history of music, ever, I assert. Here is a brief clip from some video I took to prove it.

It blows my mind that such a baby as Lloyd Webber was could write this music when he was 20 years old or so. And that Tim Rice, only a few years older, could rock up the bible with lyrics so relatable, so probing, so humanising, so rooted in history and so prescient. Lyrics you can never, ever forget or stop singing even now, especially now, in contemporary contexts:

“We are occupied – have you forgotten how put down we are?”

“A rabble rousing mission that I think we must abort / He is dangerous!”

“I look for truth and find that I get damned.”

Or “Crucify him! Crucify him!” – Remember “Lock her up! Lock her up!”  It doesn’t take much for people to turn in on their own. I am Australian, we invented the Tall Poppy Syndrome. And I am Jewish, and we know persecution.

As a Jewish child I studied the Old Testament, never read the New, even though it has been gifted to me by a loving Christian friend, and I have always taken the Tim Rice libretto as a close-enough version of what happened. (I’ve also been fascinated by the Martin Scorsese and Mel Gibson films to flesh out human versions of Christ). Right or wrong, this is my knowledge of Jesus. As the musical is set in the last few days of Christ’s life, the absence of any carpentering is probably understandable. I sometimes wonder if there was a song about woodworking that got left on the cutting room floor, so to speak. All we get is Judas referring to “tables, chairs and oaken chests” early on. Nor is there any reference to the immaculate conception, the barn, the shepherds, early childhood et al. He calls out for his mother as he dies on the cross, that’s it. But I’ve always loved the musical’s intense focus. Man or Messiah, he was human, he thought, he felt, he believed, he hoped, he despaired, he questioned, he suffered horribly, and he died. He died at Passover. And what his followers believe then happened is why they celebrate Easter. Nothing explains chocolate eggs or rabbits or bilbies.

I digress, as I often do. What then to do about this Jesusmania?

The story is moving, and the Lloyd Webber and Rice interpretation, controversial back in the early 1970s, is intense human drama, and so that is why Jews love this musical. Because it tells something that might be a true story, about a nice Jewish boy whose kindness and humanity, whose espousing of inclusivity and equality, whose compassion and generosity, and whose trust in a higher power, were his undoing. Maybe he came back a couple of days later, maybe he never did. But oh my, what a story.

Beautifully staged by Sergio Trujillo, who knows a thing or two about musicals, it was the cultural event of the year in LA, the show you had to see, and if you didn’t you would spend the rest of your life wishing you had. That would be torturous SOMO (sadness on missing out). So glad I am not sad in this case.

I was so swept away by this show and then reading the literate, glorious words of the journalists whom I link to below, I laboured under some writers block for most of the past week. I posted on Facebook and then thought maybe my words had run out. But today I sat, I wrote, and wrote… and wrote.

And still, there is really just this: I was there. Twice.

There, four words.

Deference due to the journalists in LA who already gushed with every superlative, maybe a touch of criticism to proffer some balance, and said a lot for all of us.  Chris Willman in Variety describes the show as “smashing” and says “it would be hard to think of a purely local L.A. experience in recent years that more of a national audience would have liked to see and couldn’t.”  The LA Times’ Charles McNulty writes about a transcendent, starry celebration, and some Billboard podcasters talk about why the three-nights-only production needs to be shared with the world.

My camera lives on, miraculously! Glad I caught so many moments; I can relive the show through my images. You can, too, so click through one by one and enjoy. Everything’s alright, yes everything’s fine.