‘#Shesus’— all-female cast for ‘Superstar’
Say what you will about the Bible, but its character development isn’t that great.
The holy book’s central figures are less real people than abstractions; they’re defined by one or a few actions rather than their internal lives. Maybe that’s exactly what you need if you’re trying to devise a sacred text that will speak to (and convert!) peoples across cultures and times, but it works less well in musical theater.
That’s true even if you tell your story with rock anthems that draw on jazz, swing and funk rhythms, as in the 1970 Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Jesus Christ Superstar,” about Christ’s last days. And it’s still true even if you have a radical, refreshing
take on that show, as in Ray of Light Theatre’s all-female production (nicknamed “#Shesus”), which opened Friday, May 18, at the Victoria Theatre.
Still, lackluster material has rarely shined as in Eliza Leoni and Shane Ray’s production. Just to see so many women onstage, for once, thrills. But it’s not just the numbers. They’re not the love interests of male leads (with the possible exception of Maita Ponce as Mary Magdalene — tellingly, the only main role originally envisioned for a woman). Nor do they hiss at each other in some petty catfight. They’re defined, rather, by their roles in a cosmic political battle over the future of Rome — whether they support the powerful and the status quo; whether they’re agitators standing up for impoverished, starving Jews; or, as in the case of Judas ( Jocelyn Pickett), whether they fear the revolutionary cause has gone astray.
In short, they get to do the kinds of things that male actors can take for granted. Their actions, in Leoni and Ray’s envisioning, aren’t the faraway stuff of ancient religious parable but part of the simmering revolutions of our own time. Protesters confront police barricades of clear plastic riot shields and tear gas. They huddle over their social media strategy, their flurry of hashtagged posts popping up on four screens that hang over the stage, which also periodically display live video feed repurposed as news broadcasts.
Christian Mejia’s everchanging lighting design, on Kuo-Hao Lo’s industrial, scaffolding-heavy set design, gives the show the hyperkinetic energy of a rock concert until Jesus’ last moments. Backlit by a bewitching blend of blue and soft yellow, the crucifix seems to levitate. It’s lighting the doorway to the firmament.
Janelle LaSalle as Jesus is a cipher to her crowd of followers, always looking at them but seeing something else, as if a panorama of the universe clouds her eyeballs. Her belt pierces like a saber, mustering a force that could part seas. Ponce’s Mary has an astonishingly bright timbre, the kind of tone that radiates goodness. The quarryvoiced Heather Orth as the villain Caiaphas has the stage presence, the inborn imperiousness and irony of a drag queen. She makes sipping a libation into a comic event.
As much as the script tries to complicate figures who are one-note in the Bible — Jesus is worried about resources being stretched too thin to help all the poor; Judas betrays not just for money but to stop a movement that’s deviated from its mission — the story is still often as rote as a Sunday school lesson, which makes it difficult to invest emotionally.
But if Ray of Light’s concept can reinvigorate material like “Jesus Christ Superstar,” how might a similar take breathe new life into the rest of the musical theater canon? Producers, take note.
Lily Janiak is The San Francisco Chronicle’s theater critic. Email: ljaniak@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LilyJaniak