Inside 'Jesus Christ Superstar'

Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webberâ??s Jesus Christ Superstar set the world buzzing when it first appeared on vinyl in 1970 and on Broadway in 1971. The executives at MCA Records were terrified by it. In reaction to the single "Superstar," one MCA exec said, "A song like that will offend everyone." Another said, "If we put that record out, every churchman in the country will stone us." It made one secretary cry, who said, "Itâ??s sad when a company like Decca [owned by MCA] has to make money by making fun of Jesus!" Later on, the filmâ??s director Norman Jewison would say, "My hope is that audiences will take this for what it is â?? an opera, not history. These kids are trying to take Jesus off the stained-glass windows and get him down on the street. Some people are not going to like that." As author Robert Short put it, "It is a complete misunderstanding to view Jesus Christ Superstar as an expression of anyoneâ??s answerâ?¦ Its purpose is, first, to put to Jesus the question we have today about the meaning of life, and second, to put this question in our own way of putting it." Tim Rice did with this story the same thing that clergy across America do every Sunday morning: remove it from its distant past and foreign culture and give it resonance and relevance to the issues and obstacles we face every day.