Review: 'Jesus Christ Superstar' returns to rock-opera origins in 'The 50th Anniversary Tour'

In 1971, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice produced a double album of their rock opera adaptation of the final week of the life of Jesus, “Jesus Christ Superstar,” created with a cast drawn from the world of rock ‘n’ roll.

The show would ultimately make it to the Broadway stage, then to film, then back to the stage in various productions during the next half century.

The production now playing at the Tulsa PAC is billed as “The 50th Anniversary Tour,” and one of the goals director Timothy Sheader wanted to achieve with this version was to return it to its rock-album roots.

And he and his creative crew have succeeded, as this “Jesus Christ Superstar” relies on concert-style lighting effects for any sense of theatricality or spectacle.

Conventional microphones — hand-held on stands, wireless or trailing blood-red cords — are omnipresent, as they would be in a rock show. The stage set is mostly static and compact, the choreography by Drew McOnie is vigorous and challenging, if a touch repetitive, and most often performed in unison by the ensemble, like a band’s backup dancers.

And the music — supplied by an onstage five-piece ensemble led by Mark Binns — has all the squealing, shredding guitar work, the insistent and antic bass lines, and the chest-resonating drumming to make most heavy metal fans swoon.

And it all works, giving this deliberately provocative twist on the biblical story a sobering, astringent tone, with just enough ambiguity in how it tells this very familiar story to leave room for a mustard seed of faith.

The show’s most notable conceit is making Judas (played by Oklahoma native Elvie Ellis), the apostle who betrays Jesus, a sympathetic character, someone concerned for the poor and hungry, and who believes if that his friend Jesus (performed by understudy Joshua Bess at the Wednesday performance we attended) would only focus on helping such people as those, they could accomplish good things and not run fatally afoul of the Jewish and Roman authorities.

But Jesus knows what fate awaits him, and the burden of that knowledge is almost overwhelming. He’s spent three years trying to convince the world of who he is, and the deeper truths of his teaching, but everyone around him has their own ideas of what a messiah should be and should do, from fixing their lives to overthrowing the government.

Jesus, in spite of his doubts and fears, finally admits that the only thing he can do is to acquiesce to his own death, since “to conquer death, you only have to die.”

Bess and Ellis are extremely good as Jesus and Judas; these roles require the ability to more or less scream on pitch for a good portion of the show, and it is a huge credit that both men carry this off almost effortlessly. They get across the emotional turmoil of their characters without undue histrionics; Bess is especially effective in the showstopping number “Gethsemane,” with a performance that is no less emotional for being more circumspect in its physicality.

Faith Jones as Mary Magdalene does a stirring rendition of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” while the duo act of Isaac Ryckeghem as Caiaphas and Kodiak Thompson as Annas made the most of the blend of Ryckeghem’s bass voice with Thompson’s countertenor.

Nicholas Hambruch was a forceful Pontius Pilate, while Erich W. Schleck camped up his turn as King Herod to a delicious decadent degree. Emma Cook led the ensemble with her explosive dancing as the Mob Leader.

“Jesus Christ Superstar” continues with performances through Sunday, Jan. 29 at the Tulsa PAC, 101 E. Third St. For tickets: 918-596-7111, tulsapac.com.