It’s “Jesus Christ Superstar” week and we are kicking off with the 2012 London stage version that Sir Andy L-Dubs put up on YouTube for free, which I have never seen

I have shrimp tacos on the way, we’re doing Good Friday right

LET’S DO THIS

MEL C IS MARY MAGDALENE?!?!??!????!?!??????????

it’s definitely set in Modern Times as we can tell from all the news footage of Super Fucked Up Things Happening In Britain playing during the overture and from the detail that the Roman guards are riot cops with shields, a detail I actually think I like

the apostles just threw a Molotov cocktail and now there’s a riot and the cops are beating up the protesters, who all have sweats and hoodies and I think some had Anonymous masks?? I don’t hate this!

HIPSTER JESUS

my sister would absolutely date this Judas Iscariot

he has white man dreads which is how you know he is the villain

oh fuck though he has an incredible voice

Judas is the most musically interesting role of the show by a huge margin, “Gethsemane” aside

there are tents and laptops and punk girls with neon hair at Disciple HQ, I think we are going for like an Occupy Wall Street aesthetic here

oh my god “What’s the Buzz” has a big screen montage of the apostles like tweeting out Jesus content with HASHTAG BUZZ and they’re following him around recording on their iPads and no one is actually listening to him and I want to hate this but it WORKS??? also oh no Jesus is hot

Judas is just sitting in the back grouchily drinking what looks from here like a PBR

A WILD SPICE GIRL APPEARS

Judas rolling his eyes and going off to have a smoke because he’s so annoyed that Jesus is letting Mary hang out with them and ruin the purity of their brand

he is immediately the most fully realized character here, I know him and I hate him already

JCS HOT TAKES: honestly it is Christian patriarchal misogyny in a nutshell to have exactly one female character in your show and give her only love songs instead of letting her be part of the movement

I mean “Everything’s All Right” & “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” are jams, but

there is exactly one Mary song I love and it is “Could We Start Again Please?”, her duet with Peter after Jesus is arrested, which is still about love but it frames them as equals and is far more about “WHAT THE HELL ARE THE REST OF US SUPPOSED TO DO NOW” than romance

Mel C looks straight bonkers here with her beaded dreads and hair feathers but you know what I’ve never seen before this? A Mary Magdalene offering to help Jesus “relax, think of nothing” and giving him a massage that actually looks like a real, non-sexualized massage?

I unreasonably love this detail

she gently guided his head in a circle to stretch out the neck like you do in yoga and then she was working the muscles in his palms and finger joints where you carry a lot of tension if you type all day

this is ???? great

usually it’s staged very much like, this woman wants to have intimate physical contact with this man and can’t so she’s using a socially acceptable excuse to touch and caress him for her own pleasure, but this is a Mary who seems to genuinely know her shit? I bet she does reiki

just this detail of how she’s offering to help Jesus relax so he can sleep in a way that is genuinely grounded in something besides repressed romantic longing has made her an infinitely more interesting character to me in like 10 seconds

also whew having Judas tell her “PEOPLE WHO ARE STARVING IN THE WORLD MATTER MORE THAN THE DUMB GIRL THINGS YOU CARE ABOUT” hits different in 2020!!!! if this is an indictment of shitty left bros I support it!

pause, my shrimp tacos are here

in this house we eat dinner at weird hours because we forget to notice when we are hungry and also nothing matters

wait they just walked off together arm in arm, DO JESUS AND MARY MAGS HOOK UP IN THIS ONE????????

AHHHHHH CAIAPHAS AND ANNAS

they’re like government assholes in suits in a conference room showing each other security camera videos of Jesus causing a ruckus

God I love these guys, they get so many good songs

having them be stuffy bureaucratic Brits delights me

the “PEOPLE OVER PROFIT” protest sign in “Hosanna” is sending me

every time I catch myself laughing at some detail that feels like they’re trying to be relevant I realize what’s happened is that in a lot of ways it IS incredibly relevant

I’m at Simon the Zealot now, and watching Jesus’ escalating panic when he realizes he’s accidentally started a cult who want him to murder the Romans to become king and weren’t actually listening to anything he said

oh no Pilate is also hot

omg he’s a British judge, he’s singing to his assistant while he gets his wig and robe on, that was great

it’s always super fun to see how every production does the “what does Sin Land look like” scene, we have gone full neon rave aesthetic here

JESUS SMASHED THE DJ TABLE!!!!!! He was not playing!!!!!

the mob of bleeding and sick and starving people overwhelming Jesus and swallowing him up is always a great visual but whew in 2020 it gets a lot right about how it must feel to be any kind of aid worker rn

the show lets Jesus be worn out by emotional labor, which I always liked

just like. there are too many people to help and everyone’s need is equally great and you cannot help them all

this lands very different now

time to sing a Girl Song

God she really is such a great singer though

we never respected the spice girls enough

you know what

I’m gonna say it

this is the most I’ve ever enjoyed both Mary Magdalene songs

she does a thing during that one instrumental break before the second “I never thought I’d come to this,” where she wipes off her bright lipstick and her smudgy eye makeup and takes off her jacket and I just ??? removing the layers of armor that keep men from Seeing Her???? YES??

also here’s what I like about it

the moment of her realizing “oh fuck I’m in love with Jesus” happens onstage

it wasn’t there during “Everything’s Alright,” when she legit was just like “let’s do some relaxation techniques, you’re carrying a lot of tension in your neck”

but then during the SECOND “Everything’s Alright” when she comforts him after he’s besieged by the people demanding help, he kisses her hand before he walks offstage which is soft af but also THAT’S WHEN SHE SUDDENLY KNOWS

GUYS

MEL C CAN ACT

also she looks. incredible

maybe I just never liked Yvonne Ellison’s performance as Mary Magdalene but I actually like these songs?!!????