The eagerly anticipated rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, arrived at the Mark Hellenger last night with a huge advance sale, pickets denouncing it on the street outside, and heated preliminary discussions in the lobby.  And, after sitting through the modernized musical version of the events leading up to the crucifixion of Christ, by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, I felt it wasn't worthy of the furor, enthusiasm and ire that it has aroused.

My reaction to it, in fact, was that of a character in a comedy by George M. Cohan many years ago who kept shouting, "What's all the shooting for?"  The Messrs. Rice, who wrote the lyrics, and Webber, who composed the score, weren't trying to be frivolous or satirical, and they certainly didn't intend to be sacrilegious.  Indeed, they were very much in earnest.  The only trouble, to my mind, was that what they gave us was commonplace and never exciting or moving.

Jesus Christ Superstar represents probably the only example in history of a musical show based on a recording album.  Its recorded score has been a big hit throughout this country and in several others, chiefly among the young, who appear to have found in it an outlet for their new religious stirrings.  So Tom O'Horgan, who directed the Broadway Hair, decided it would make a successful lyric drama, and this is the result of his efforts.

The narrative, done entirely in song, is dutifully faithful to the New Testament accounts, and hardly needs to be retold here.  The Judas is played by a black man, but this can't be regarded as an affront to his race because he is by far the best and most attractive actor in the cast.  But what would keep the evening from being offensive to spectators, if anything really was, is that the entire show is so flat, pallid and actually pointless.

Since the score in recorded form has proved to be so phenomenally successful everywhere it must possess a certain merit that was not evident to me last night.  I thought it was a reasonably agreeable example of rock music, but completely ordinary and decidedly not exciting.  It is this general air of the commonplace in dealing with such a dramatic subject that hangs over the production.  At the beginning of the second half, things grow slightly more effective, but it isn't enough to lift it into more than the mildest sort of interest.

Although Ben Vereen's Judas dominates the performances, Jeff Fenholt's Christ is properly dignified, but I did suspect it was out of character to have him sing through a microphone.  Near the end, when he cries from the cross: "Forgive them; they don't know what they are doing!", it somehow didn't seem an improvement over the King James version.  Anyway, whatever the notices may be, Jesus Christ Superstar is apparently going to be a large hit.

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