I don't always get to witness large cultural moments live along with everyone else in my generation, but sometimes I time it right. I remember watching the Olympics for some of the same events that everyone remembers, like the 1980 hockey finals, Dorothy Hamil's ice skating, or Nadia Comaneci's perfect 10. I was home sick from school the day Ronald Reagan was shot, and live news coverage interrupted all the television I was attempting to watch that day. And I woke up at 3 am to watch Charles and Diana get married. Some things I was too busy to witness. I was at school the day the Challenger blew up, and while I did hear about it, I didn't obsess on it the way some of my classmates did. Same with the OJ trial, that happened while I was at work. When it comes to fiction, sometimes I'm just late to the party. I refused even to crack open a Harry Potter book until the third in the series had been out for a while, and I finally caved in and started at book one. I didn't think I'd like Game of Thrones, but once we got HBO last year, I sat for a marathon of it. People had to tell me for a year before I agreed to watch Stranger Things (so glad I listened!).
A few years ago, when NBC television made a great big deal about a live production of The Sound of Music, I was a bit excited to watch, although there were a few bugs present with it being on live TV that left me slightly underwhelmed. Their follow-up production of Peter Pan was painful for me to view, and I didn't finish it. I put it all out of my mind afterwards that they had even attempted these things, until two weeks ago, when I found out that they were putting on a live production of Jesus Christ Superstar. I was so afraid that they would mess it up. This one is my special favorite, with so many memories wrapped up inside of it, I almost don't know where to start to unpack it.
I first saw the movie when I was a very young child. It played at the air force base theater in Germany where we lived, and my mother went out and bought the soundtrack soon after. It was in the vinyl record days, and I played all four sides of those two discs until the grooves were smooth. The only other music I felt that strongly about back then was Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and it's a hard call which album got more spin time at our apartment thanks to me. After we came back from Germany, I made a point of watching the movie on television every chance I could get, when it played around Easter, in the days before home ownership of movies (not only pre-DVD, but pre-VHS). When I was 8 years old and I was given a primitive electric piano for Christmas, my grandmother took the time to work out the chords for "I Don't Know How to Love Him," on the piano, at my request. She was amazing, but unfortunately I never was able to learn to play it like she did. At some point in high school or college, I acquired the original soundtrack, the one before any of the stage productions had been done, starring the lead singer of Deep Purple, the guy who later gained fame for One Night in Bangkok, and the guy who would one day voice the Lord Chamberlain in Dark Crystal. It was that version of the musical that became our go-to road trip cassette, that young Mr Smith and I would sing along to everywhere we went, whether it was on distant campouts or trips back to Oklahoma to visit my family, or anywhere in the country we felt like seeing. Our kids grew up knowing the musical backwards and forwards just like we did.
When I got home from Easter dinner with the in-laws, I was exhausted. I barely managed to stumble all the way into my room before I was out cold for a nap. I woke up to a dimly lit room, and I peeked at Twitter. My entire timeline was blowing up about "who's watching" and "wow, that was well done." My favorite comment was from Randy Rainbow who said that the woman singing Mary Magdalene had a voice so good, he could lather his hair with it, rinse it out, and repeat it all night long. So I turned on the tv, and was so glad I remembered to set to record it in advance. I backed it all the way up to the beginning, paused it, and sent a picture out to the Mr who was soaking in the hot tub, to tell him to get in here quickly so we could watch it together. I had to lean outside and insist in person that he come in, because he didn't realize it was a time-sensitive event. Our exchange student asked us what was happening, and she came in and watched with us. Three or four cats filled up the available space, and we were glued to the show, with the sound on the TV cranked up to about 75% of capacity. Even so, the Mr and I were singing along so loudly, I don't know how XS was able to hear how good the performances were on the television. We paused it a few times to talk about the differences in language, how she remembered one of the tunes from her church in Croatia but with different lyrics, how in English it is "the last supper" not "the last dinner," and a few points of theology that sparked well-reasoned discussion and references to other works of literature. We also oohed and aahed over the performances, choreography, and costumes. I am really glad that we made a point of watching this at the very moment it was available in our time zone (okay, an hour after that, accounting for backing up the DVR), so that we felt like we participated in a pop culture event. This one was worth it. Best of the all the ones this network has done. Now I have to decide whether I can fork over the cash to add another version to my collection of JCS soundtracks. It would make #4.
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