More Jesus Christ, Superstar

While looking for more decent original videos not long ago, I happened upon this theater group from Holland known as the Vollendam Superstars. These people aren't professionals--they're amateurs and many reportedly don't even speak English other than the lines and songs that they learned for this production. If you listen to their performance, many of them replicate the lines of the original 1973 players right down to accents and inflections. But the result is fantastic, and they deserve a lot of credit.

Most notable though is Jan Dulles, the singer/actor who plays Judas, reprising Carl Anderson's role in the original. Dulles actually has some experience, and he's really, really good. I'm impressed, and I suspect that Carl Anderson would be, too.




Still, I have to give it to the original. Ted Neeley played Jesus well and contrasted perfectly with Anderson's Judas.




Barry Dennan was hard to top as Pontius Pilate, too.



Great productions like this don't come along often, and thirty-five years later, it's still great. Get a copy and watch the whole thing this week-end. You'll enjoy it, and if nothing else, it'll help you remember what Easter's supposed to be about--very real events that took place 2,000 years ago that make all the difference for us today.