Jesus Christ Superstar

Listing information courtesy of:
The L Magazine

Jesus isn't very likable in this revival of the 1969 rock opera. Mopey, angsty and irascible, he comes across as a crazy death-cultist, consumed with mysticism and unwilling to engage in the political upheaval around him. Judas, on the other hand, is the surrogate for a secular liberal audience: a disbeliever in miracles, a passionate advocate for the poor, a proto-Occupier. Superstar's theatrical coup was to position The Traitor as the tragic hero of the Gospels, humanizing history's most inhuman figure.

Listing also appears in:
New Yorker