& the electric guitar was lovin' it.
I went to St. Thomas in Southington, CT, for a quasi-musical rendition of the old passion play... and about halfway through KNEW I was going to be posting a comment here. ;)
...for an amateur production. A full chorus, staging and lighting, air mics and at least a dozen walkarounds (though, as always, that sound guy needs to be on his toes more; I would've missed a couple one-liners if I wasn't in the front row). Sets were very minimal - just basic indoor/outdoor. Costumes: mostly standard shepherd/peasant for this kind of production, though in a nice touch Peter's included a fishing net. The priests were the best by far, period-appropriate and worthy of envy. (They were also the best actors. Caiaphas has clearly done drama work before - standout in the cast.)
The show was a mix of dialog and snippets of popular Christian tunes - a verse or two, a chorus, as appropriate to the scene at hand. They were actually pretty clever and nicely done. I applaud whoever put that together. (The dialog, on the other hand, needs a scalpel. Or an ax.) There was a live pit band... piano, a couple of guitars, a cello, a bass... the usual. I was more or less enjoying it. It wasn't going to sweep me off my feet or anything.
Then.
THEN.
Then, they get to the flogging. And the electric guitar starts blasting out the freakin' Heaven On Their Minds riff.
Epicwinepicwinepicwin
My dad completely spazzes out in the seat next to me. I may or may not have hissed /sang“My mind is clear-er now! At last... all toooooo well...” into his ear. They had the whole crowd shouting the countdown. Move over, soulful Gethsemane. Move over, Mary's mournful “he's always been by little child.” Judas rockstar in da house.
Forgive me, I had to.
Jesus. Now I always have trouble with various productions of passion plays, because the Jesus seems to be chosen for two reasons. (1) He can parade around shirtless without embarrassing himself, and (2) he does a halfway decent death scene. [An aside. How awkward IS the Crucifixion in most passion plays? They can't find the time to give any of the apostles besides Peter and Judas a name - well, sometimes John - much less a personality, yet he's up there endlessly because he just HAS to spin out all the traditional tortuous lines...]
This Jesus was no exception. His general dialog delivery... eh. (Way cooler if Jesus sang a song. Why doesn't he get to sing, even in the musical versions of the Passion?) But I have to hand it to him, he did a very convincing death delivery, including all those lines. Certainly the best I've seen in all my years of endless passion plays, musicals, movies, etc...
Judas was actually a fabulous actor, I give him major kudos. I swear the guy was actually crying on stage. Now, if they hadn't given him some half-baked motivation about rising up and overthrowing the Romans (who is he now, Barabbas?) it would have been better, but the guy ran miles with the stick he was given.
… but let me leave the musings on Judas (and I have lots of thoughts) for another day, probably a very soon day, probably this weekend if the weather stays as gloomy as it has been and keeps me pent up inside.
Anyway, I had to share my excitement with getting blindsided by that familiar riff tonight :D completely awesome.
On Friday evening I'm going to another theater event, a musical rendition called “The Passion of the King” which is actually a proper production, written staged and directed by Brent Grosvenor, who has a bit of a low-profile history in the business. I've been two other years and have always been pleased. Pacing needs work, but it is a full-blown original musical with some really catchy tunes - and excellent production qualities. I always get pretty psyched to see this. More later.
//
An aside:
I did open up a deviantart. Rabekrieger, because apparently I've changed genders. Or maybe somebody has already taken my usual screen name... that might be it... hmm. There is nothing new up there that you haven't seen here - except for this one -
What's that you say? I must be Catholic? Maybe.........
...for an amateur production. A full chorus, staging and lighting, air mics and at least a dozen walkarounds (though, as always, that sound guy needs to be on his toes more; I would've missed a couple one-liners if I wasn't in the front row). Sets were very minimal - just basic indoor/outdoor. Costumes: mostly standard shepherd/peasant for this kind of production, though in a nice touch Peter's included a fishing net. The priests were the best by far, period-appropriate and worthy of envy. (They were also the best actors. Caiaphas has clearly done drama work before - standout in the cast.)
The show was a mix of dialog and snippets of popular Christian tunes - a verse or two, a chorus, as appropriate to the scene at hand. They were actually pretty clever and nicely done. I applaud whoever put that together. (The dialog, on the other hand, needs a scalpel. Or an ax.) There was a live pit band... piano, a couple of guitars, a cello, a bass... the usual. I was more or less enjoying it. It wasn't going to sweep me off my feet or anything.
Then.
THEN.
Then, they get to the flogging. And the electric guitar starts blasting out the freakin' Heaven On Their Minds riff.
Epicwinepicwinepicwin
My dad completely spazzes out in the seat next to me. I may or may not have hissed /sang“My mind is clear-er now! At last... all toooooo well...” into his ear. They had the whole crowd shouting the countdown. Move over, soulful Gethsemane. Move over, Mary's mournful “he's always been by little child.” Judas rockstar in da house.
Forgive me, I had to.
Jesus. Now I always have trouble with various productions of passion plays, because the Jesus seems to be chosen for two reasons. (1) He can parade around shirtless without embarrassing himself, and (2) he does a halfway decent death scene. [An aside. How awkward IS the Crucifixion in most passion plays? They can't find the time to give any of the apostles besides Peter and Judas a name - well, sometimes John - much less a personality, yet he's up there endlessly because he just HAS to spin out all the traditional tortuous lines...]
This Jesus was no exception. His general dialog delivery... eh. (Way cooler if Jesus sang a song. Why doesn't he get to sing, even in the musical versions of the Passion?) But I have to hand it to him, he did a very convincing death delivery, including all those lines. Certainly the best I've seen in all my years of endless passion plays, musicals, movies, etc...
Judas was actually a fabulous actor, I give him major kudos. I swear the guy was actually crying on stage. Now, if they hadn't given him some half-baked motivation about rising up and overthrowing the Romans (who is he now, Barabbas?) it would have been better, but the guy ran miles with the stick he was given.
… but let me leave the musings on Judas (and I have lots of thoughts) for another day, probably a very soon day, probably this weekend if the weather stays as gloomy as it has been and keeps me pent up inside.
Anyway, I had to share my excitement with getting blindsided by that familiar riff tonight :D completely awesome.
On Friday evening I'm going to another theater event, a musical rendition called “The Passion of the King” which is actually a proper production, written staged and directed by Brent Grosvenor, who has a bit of a low-profile history in the business. I've been two other years and have always been pleased. Pacing needs work, but it is a full-blown original musical with some really catchy tunes - and excellent production qualities. I always get pretty psyched to see this. More later.
//
An aside:
I did open up a deviantart. Rabekrieger, because apparently I've changed genders. Or maybe somebody has already taken my usual screen name... that might be it... hmm. There is nothing new up there that you haven't seen here - except for this one -
What's that you say? I must be Catholic? Maybe.........