The Stage Design of Jesus Christ Superstar

Judas, a tragic man who is bearing the crime of betraying Jesus, is my favorite character in this play, and he is the reason I choose Jesus Christ Superstar to be my subject of my project. Because I am not a Christian and know little things about the Bible, I believe what people have told me that Judas is an unreligious follower who is tempted to be a betrayer of Jesus but this play shows that I am wrong in judging a person too fast. I shouldn’t take what most people say as the truths without my own judgments. After watching this play, I have different views toward the figures appearing in the Bible. I don’t regard what this play suggests as the only truths because I don’t want to make the same mistake again. However, this play is my subject after all and I am not the maker of this masterpiece, so I have to try my best to keep everything original when I design the stage.

In my design, I separate the stage into two parts: the lower one is for greedy people who are addicted to power and wealth. The upper one is for people who are really noble or just seem noble.

Gaiaphas and other priests are planning to kill Jesus for keeping their authority intact. All these things happen in the first floor, because what they are going to do have to de done in secret. Moreover, their intentions are so evil that they can never stand at the upper place. They are only belonging to Hell. They represent the bad side of human nature, and showing us that human beings can be defeated by just using money and power.

The upper floor is for Jesus, his followers and mobs. As you can see, in the two sides of this floor, there are two small triangle places. Take a closer look, and you can find they both have diaphanous walls to separate them from the central stage. These two small places are where mobs and most of Jesus’ followers should stay, because they are still too humanistic as comparing to Mary, Judas and Jesus. Though they worship Jesus in the beginning, what they want and think of are all for their causes. They want to be saved, but they refuse to sacrifice any thing. They admire Jesus for making Jesus be the scapegoat of their desire, so they are the murderers indeed. Like Judas is the scapegoat of God, God use Judas to have Jesus, and that’s why Judas cries out “You have murdered me!” at the very end of his suicide—god is responsible for Judas death.

Those people who stand at the small places of two sides and stay with Jesus all the time seem like that they understand him very much. As the matter of fact, they didn’t and they won’t, because they don’t even try to understand Jesus after all. They can touch Jesus’ body, but they are never able to touch his heart. There are always walls between them and Jesus, and all they can do is stay in the walls and pray. Contrary to them, Mary and Judas are the only figures who can feel what Jesus feels, so they have the qualification to be in the center of the stage in the second floor with Jesus.

You may ask me then how two people in different floors communicate with each other. It is a problem indeed, so I make a huge screen at the center of the wall in the upper floor. This device is the only connection between them. Furthermore, in my interpretation, ordinary people’s misunderstandings of Jesus result in Jesus’ death, and Gaiaphas and King Herod are just doing the action for them. Well, a good king should know what people want and do people want him to do, so based on this principle then King Herod can be taken as a good king, right? According to my explanation, in this crucifying scene, I prefer to use the big screen to show the process of crucifying Jesus, instead of doing this scene with real actions on stage. The screen will be turned off when it comes to Judas’s song “Superstar”, and Jesus will show up as a real man who is hanging on a cross.

In the last scene, Jesus’ monologue, the screen comes back to work again. The beginning of this scene will have only character lest—miserable Jesus. The screen shows a flood of blood moving from the top, until the whole screen becomes totally red. This effect comes along with Jesus’ singing. At the very last moment, when Jesus cries out the last two words “MY SPIRIT”, every light will be opened, including the screen which is one of the lights at this time, and then Jesus will die in glory.

I enjoy designing the stage of this play, because I try hard to presents the touches I got from this play and I hope people can feel the pressures I experienced. I think the most important thing we learn from a show is not what it is talking about, but what it is suggesting. This play offers me overwhelmingly different point of views to look each figure in the Bible. And I know that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice were not trying to challenge the faiths of Christianity. They just intended to look for the truths of Christianity for there are still so many questions remaining.