Theatre Design & Technology - Dec 1974 - 36

ROCK OPERA, THE CREATION OF
'JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR' FROM
RECORD ALBUM TO BROADWAY SHOW
AND MOTION PICTURE.
Ellis Nassour & Richard Broderick
New York, Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1973
248 pp., 125 illus., index
$8.95 hardcover
Reviewing a book of this type one must constantly
stifle the desire to comment on the work itself rather
than on the authors' description of the evolution and
various productions it endured. Jesus Christ Superstar has had an impact above and beyond what its
intrinsic merits might suggest, and the authors'
lively narrative provides insights as to why this is so.
I must confess that I enjoyed Rock Opera much as I
have enjoyed recent si mi lar efforts to pierce the
mystical fog which surrounds the entertainment
industry: Lorrie Davis' Letting Down My Hair;
Richard Piro's poignant Black Fiddler; Altman and
Kaufman's The Making of a Musical; not to mention
Harvey Phillip's The Carmen Chronicle and even
John Culshaw's Ring Resounding. All of these are
efforts to bring the reader 'backstage' as it were.
And indeed for non-theatre people or those on the
fringes a look behind the normally closed doors can
be fasci nati ng. Our future sociolog ists and historians
will no doubt make good use of this material for all of
the above titles serve as documentation of what goes
on in the music business; the infighting, the
promotion, the glittering facade, and the churning
interior. And are not we all a part of this laughter
and tears life?
Rock Opera is a chronological survey of how it all
came about. 1969 and Decca Records, in the midst of
a shakeup, is trying to improve its competitive
position. They go with a 45 rpm single with unknown
Murray Head singing "Jesus Christ" by two British
youngsters, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
This single provoked major controversy and led to a
massive $65,000 investment by MCA to produce a
two disk set of Rice and Webber's complete work, a
near disaster which required four hundred hours of
recording time. More than ninety percent of the
notices were raves, and the sales records are now
ancient history. At this point enter Robert Stigwood,
the English entrepreneur, Frank Corsaro, the American director, plus a long list of assorted entertainment types, and a stage production evolves rapidly.
Corsaro is bumped in favor of Tom O'Hogan, and
Jesus Christ Superstar overcomes negative reviews
and unauthorized productions to become a Broadway
gravy train. Good fortune for the backers because the
stage version, flaunting the use of sophisticated
sound ran through a $300,000 budget just for this
aspect of the show! Given the financial returns of

Broadway, a film version was inevitable.
From 45 rpm single through film extravaganza
Jesus Christ Superstar has had all the elements of
sensationalism, commercialism, inflated budgets, PR
and yes, theatricality with which we have burdened
ourselves during this century. And the question must
be asked, is it possible to create and produce
meaningful theatre under the pressures of such a
giant looking glass? Peter Brook among others has
asked this question and it is worth thinking about. If
you are still looking out from your relatively sane
world of non-New York, non-Hollywood theatre, read
Rock Opera - it may add dimension to your
perspective!
Marc Sundelof

MASKS, FACE COVERINGS AND
HEADGEAR
Norman Laliberte and Alex Magelon
Von Nostrand Reinhold Company
New York, 1973
108 pp., profusely illustrated
Masks, Face Coverings and Headgear, a collaborative work by Norman Laliberte and Alex Mogelen
is one of those little wrap-around books with enough
bigness to make you wish it came out in a grand
edition.
The text of the book is roughly quartered into the
following chapters: "Masks and Headgear Throughout the Ages," "Masks and Headgear in the Professions and Sports," "Demonstrations and Projects,"
and" A Gallery of Contemporary Masks and Headgear." Although it is demarcated by these chapters,
the book feels more like an eclectic zip through time
and subject because of its continually surprising
vistas: Paul Klee's enchanting finger puppet masks
are given equal billing with Gerry Cheever's selfscarred goalie mask; and the Playboy Bunny's ears
have a professional identification similar to the nun's
headdress. The second chapter, "Masks and Headgear in the Professions and Sports," is an especially
fascinating sociological documentation of the mask
and its kin in the twentieth century.
Laliberte and Mogelon have successfully used a
pictorial collage confrontation to present their material and this method contributes much to the arresting
graphic strength of the book. The author's choice of
visuals also indicates the care and originality of their
research, most notably in their repeated recognition
that the mask has variants outside of its traditional
role of face disguise. Such an expanded viewpoint
allows for some interesting insights and crossreferences. For example, it was refreshing to see
medieval armor treated as a body mask instead of the
usual visor being severed from the body proper.
Later in the book, when the bullet-proof visor of a

THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

DECEMBER. 1974

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Dec 1974