Link (
Archive)
YES, JESUS WAS BLACK. AND A WOMAN. AND I DIDN’T CARE ONE BIT
Ever since my sister and I discovered a dusty old DVD of the 1973 film version of
Jesus Christ Superstar, the rock opera musical about Jesus of Nazareth, I've been an absolute stan. I've seen countless versions of the show, including the 50th-anniversary touring company—twice within four months. I know every lyric and often sing along, trying to hit those notoriously high notes and imagining I actually nailed them.
I never thought I'd see a woman actually play the part—that is, until the Hollywood Bowl announced that two-time Oscar winner
Cynthia Erivo would be stepping into the role.
At first, I was simply consumed with the logistics: how was I going to get from New York City to Los Angeles for this momentous event? I had to book a ticket pronto. Then, the news hit social media, and the comments were brutal. People questioned why Jesus was being played by a woman, a Black woman, a queer Black woman, tapping tropes about her physical attributes that I won't repeat. I asked myself a question I had never asked in my many interactions with the production: Why couldn't it be played by a woman?
Traditionally, the role has been played by men, specifically white men with the vocal range to hit those high notes. The first time I ever saw a person of color play Jesus was when John Legend took on the role in the 2018 NBC production of
Jesus Christ Superstar Live.
So, I went into the Hollywood Bowl's show thinking, "How are they going to make this work? Are they going to change the words for a woman?" They did not. Instead, they simply let an actor, who happened to be a woman, play the role of Jesus. None of the lines were changed; he was still referred to as a man. There was no mention of her or her brilliant co-star Adam Lambert's sexuality built into the show. The vocal octaves Erivo sang may have been tweaked to suit her range, but as my also
JCS-loving friend and I agreed, we didn’t mind it at all.
Erivo brought what she does best to the part: her strong, versatile vocals and her incredible ability to emanate emotion just through her eyes and gestures—a talent we saw so clearly in
Wicked and in other acclaimed roles. And like with every person we've seen on stage do it, or watched in a Mister GoLightly YouTube comparison video, reveled in how their part could be delivered in many different ways. It made me think back to Shakespearean times when men used to play female parts. Nobody questioned it when they slipped into a dress to bring a character to life; after all, they were playing a role.
One thing I did notice during the persecution scene, as Jesus received the 39 lashes ordered by Pontius Pilate, was that Black actors played the whipping guard and the handlers holding Erivo. I believe this was a deliberate choice to avoid visual themes of how African people were brutalized during enslavement by their non-Black enslavers.
For all those who have said that casting Erivo was wrong, they should know that composer Andrew Lloyd Webber gave her his full co-sign. He stated that he'd always wondered what it would be like to see a woman in the leading role. The reason people see musicals over and over again, and they get revived, is to witness another person and cast embody those roles. That's how Erivo felt when talking to EBONY about taking on the part. "I'm really excited to sort of give people another viewpoint, idea and picture of what this role can look like,” she shared.
At the end of the day, it's a musical—a creative lyrical rock opera retelling of the last days of Christ. Wouldn't we all like our lives to be remembered with a rocking soundtrack?