Watching Musicals

Thanks to COVID-19, you can watch some fabulous Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals for free on YouTube each Friday night. I was mildly interested at first, given that I've already seen a fair few of them actually live, and know most of them very well already.

We missed the first one, which was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat (each musical is only available for 48 hours) and the second was Jesus Christ Superstar. I've performed the music from that musical in a variety of choirs and school assignments, not to mention studying it a number of times as well. But I'd never seen a full performance.

I was still on the fence, until I found out the production they were showing had Tim Minchin in it. Now I was really interested. I started watching and found it to be so fascinating. They probably intentionally aired it over the Easter long weekend. The source material was fresh in my mind from church.

After I saw the first ten minutes, I asked Steve if he would want to watch it to, and he was willing to give it a go. I get so excited when we watch musicals together. So we started again. I was really impressed at the modernization. It was fantastic. I really got the sense of Jesus' disciples being confused about what kind of Messiah, or savior, Jesus was going to be. They were excited for the revolution, thinking it was going to be a military and social upheaval, when Jesus had a very different revolution in mind.

And I loved seeing Jesus react to his followers, trying to teach them, and help everyone and being simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of people coming to him for healing and help. It really hit home how patient and compassionate he was to have been with God and then come to us in such a limited human way. Amazing.

Anyway, we are watching away and during the scene that Jesus clears out the temple, he smashes a table and tells everyone to get out.

"Missed the 'Brood of vipers' line," Steve comments to me.

"He's supposed to have a whip," I say back. "I'm sad he doesn't have a whip."

"And he's supposed to turn the tables over, not break them." Steve adds. "It's the details they miss. The book was better."

Kills me with laughter even remembering it now. I love being married to Steve.