Jesus sure looks nice in that Superman T-shirt

Crap. "Les Miserables" is at the library.
All 1438 pages of it.
Aaargh.
I don't want to read that many pages!
I have 8 other series to read this summer!
And I could barely focus while reading LOTR, what with all the fighting and recapping.
The French Revolution is going to be even worse!
I read the abridged version. That should count for something.
William and I watched "Godspell" last night.
An article in A&E stated that there are two kinds of people: Godspell people and Jesus Christ Superstar people.
Not having seen Jesus Christ Superstar, I wouldn't know.
But I'm not really that into Godspell either.
It was pretty trippy.
People follow the magical horn of John/Judas the Baptist/Iscariot, who pops in out and out of windows, ballet dances, and libraries for some odd reason.
Then they all jump into the fountain and dance to "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord".
Then Jesus appears wearing nothing but blue boxers. He wants to get washed up!
After being baptized by John, he pops out of the fountain WEARING CLOTHES!
That part threw me a little, and I stared at the TV with my mouth open for five minutes afterward.
Then they went on to act out parables in strange, unorthodox ways.
Then again, Jesus himself was pretty unorthodox in his day.
But that didn't make the movie any less weird.
The music was great. Alas, alas, you lawyers and Pharisees! "Day by Day" was somewhat ruined for me by the fact that Robin sang like a man.
I really couldn't understand how tying a man's arms to a chainlink fence while he stands on a bucket could ever be fatal. I know that wasn't really the point, but still.
And then it was as if the director ALSO missed the entire point of Jesus' death: he DIDN'T rise from the dead!
And, yeah, whoever wrote the play obviously didn't believe Jesus had, didn't believe he was the Son of God, etc.
But still. Why write a play about Jesus if you leave out one of the most important parts?
And yes, I can think of reasons why.
But it made the ending somewhat of a bummer.
His disciples decide to carry his dead body around town, while they sing merrily.
Which could be interpreted as joy because they know Jesus did good things and now it was their turn to share the good news with other people.
But if Jesus never rose...what good news would they have to share?
I also found it weird that Jesus died but Judas lived.
The other disciples didn't seem mad at all that Judas betrayed and essentially killed their Rabbi.
In the Bible? He killed himself, because he felt so guilty, and maybe (this is speculation) he knew that the other disciples wouldn't be able to forgive him.
In fact, they might even have killed him.
So he beat them to it.
Which makes me sad because he screwed up big time, but he was sorry afterwards.
Yeah, that sounds lame, but it wasn't just, "Oh dear, I regret that decision." His attitude was, "How can I live with myself after what I've done? What a terrible decision!"
So he bought a field and possibly hanged himself. There's a verse that talks about his blood and guts flying everywhere, which didn't sound like a hanging. :O Maybe the other disciples got him after all.
When the high school did "Godspell" last fall, they changed the ending and it was pretty epic. Shafer had commented that the ending seemed kind of hopeless and wanted to include the Resurrection into the script. So, in the play, Judas and another disciple placed Jesus' body in a box. While they were singing "Long Live God", they opened the box and revealed to the audience that Jesus wasn't there (they literally tore that thing apart, so it was pretty obvious he was gone).
Then, when everyone was clapping, Jesus runs out in a white suit onto the stage and joins the other actors as they take their bow.
Genius? You bet.
But carrying around Jesus' corpse works, too.
Next, to torture ourselves, we're going to watch "Bye Bye Birdie" and "Oliver!". Should be fun.