Jesus Christ Superstar, which as everyone knows opened last night at the Hellenger, is so stunningly effective a theatrical experience that I am still finding it difficult to compose my thoughts about it.  It is, in short, a triumph.

This is, of course, the ultimate realization of a work that had first to prove itself by means of a recording that has been a best seller for a year.  The recording gives the impression of a dramatic oratorio with no real hint of how it might play on a stage.  But Tom O'Horgan, who conceived the production and directed it, has brought the work to brilliant life.  It's by far the best thing he has ever done.

As I'm sure you know, Jesus Christ Superstar, which tells its story entirely through song, considers the seven last days of Christ in contemporary pop terms and, it must be added, with complete reverence.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's score is vibrant, richly varied and always dramatically right and much the same things can be said for Tim Rice's lyrics.

The songs are, indeed, marvelous and although they rock a good deal of the time there are other interesting influences in it - nicely handled references to Prokofiev and Weill, to name two, and some lovely string and choral writing.

Starting with what is basically a bare, raked stage, O'Horgan has set it ablaze with action (it is probably the most energetic show I've ever seen) and special effects.  I assume he worked closely with scenic designer Robin Wagner, lighting designer Jules Fisher and costumer Randy Barcelo.

In any case, by use of a dazzling assortment of set pieces (most of them descending from the flies), props and costumes he has filled the stage with color and movement.

For examples: Ciaphas and Annas drift down and hover over the scene below on a kind of elaborate bower;  Judas, a rope around his neck, is hauled, first twitching, and then limp, up out of sight;  a monstrous green head opens to reveal King Herod reclining in a pink shell;  and so on.

But the score and the performance of a marvelous cast are what count most.  I suppose you'd have to call Judas the star role, since it is psychologically the most arresting one, and here a baritone named Ben Vereen is simply magnificent, singing and acting with a vitality that is almost unbelievable and yet with nuance, as well.

Jeff Fenholt, in the title role, is also well cast, pale and slender and with a tenor voice that can croon or scream to startling effect.  His Gethsemane was beautifully done.

Yvonne Elliman, the only member of the cast heard on the recording, was a sweet-voiced Mary Magdalene who's I Don't Know How To Love Him was exquisitely sung.

Paul Ainsley's Herod is a heavily rouged man on absurdly high platform footwear and he stopped the show with his Charleston, King Herod's Song.  Barry Dennen was a chilling figure, indeed, as Pontius Pilate, and Bob Bingham as Ciaphas and Phil Jethro as Annas were also first rate.

But so is the entire cast, whose movements O'Horgan has choreographed with such skill.

I must say a word, too, about the elaborate sound arrangements which has the lead performers working with gray-padded hand mikes and the pit orchestra, under Marc Pressel, divided, some by glass, into sections.  It worked well, so well that all the words sung by the unusually articulate principals came through clearly.

The story in itself is, of course, almost unbearably moving, but the great accomplishment of Webber and Rice has been to make it so strikingly immediate.

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