A 'sí' change for 'Jesus Christ Superstar'

Zach Scott's bilingual production of musical sets the stage in the Latino community

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Sunday, May 20, 2007

Dave Steakley admits to being nervous about his upcoming production of "Jesus Christ Superstar." And not just for the reasons that a theater director might typically have before the opening of new show.

Zachary Scott Theater Center's production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Ricemega-popular rock opera about the last days of Jesus Christ — which opens Saturday — is a bilingual Spanish-English version that draws entirely on Latino culture for its setting, characters, costumes and musical flourishes.

The show is Zach Scott's — Austin's largest professional theater company — first large-scale Latino-themed mainstage production.

Steakley cast the roles of Jesus and Mary Magdalene with Latino actors Joseph Melendez and Theresa Medina. The disciples are costumed as street toughs, punk rockers or day laborers. The Last Supper is staged as a Mexican-style fiesta. King Herod — usually played as a campy, decadent buffoon — isreimagined as a masked lucha libre wrestler. And the final scene after Jesus' crucifixion is infused with Mexican Dia de los Muertos images, particularly the sugar skulls and skeleton costumes commonly used in Day of the Dead celebrations.

Musical director Allen Robertson has infused Webber's rock score with traditional and current Mexican musical styles. And Steakley — who is not Latino — merged portions of the Spanish-language translation by Álvaro Cerviño (a version approved by the management company of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber) with the original script to create a new bilingual version in which some of the songs and a bit of the dialogue are in Spanish.

And the set, conceived by Michael Raiford, is a mosaic of red-framed shadow boxes reminiscent of Day of the Dead altars. Raiford invited anybody who was willing — professional artist or not, Latino or not — to create a box reflective of their idea of personal faith.

"Yes, this (production) has me nervous," Steakley said recently, sitting in the lobby of Zach's Kleberg Theatre surrounded by shadow boxes that have just been dropped off by their makers. "But if we're to call Zach Scott a meeting tent where everybody in Austin can find a place, then they have to feel welcome and have a voice here.

"We have to be reflective of everybody who calls Austin home.Frankly, we just haven't done a good a job of including the Latino community and the mainstage is the most public way for us to do that."

Zach patrons had been asking Steakley to do a production of "Superstar" for years. However, Steakley said, he doesn't just start cold on a show: "I need a context that makes sense for me and for Austin and the conversation we're trying to have here (at Zach Scott)."

As he was mulling around the idea of staging "Superstar," two things began to merge in his mind. First, he found a coffee-table book of photographs of home altars in rural Mexico. "I was particularly struck by how these altars were deeply personal, honest and humbly created expressions of faith," he said.

Then about a year ago, the public protests against the recent tightening of immigration policies got him pondering how Latino immigrants are marginalized and overlooked. "I was thinking about how we take care of those among us who have the least — or really how we don't," he said. "Here are all these people who are working essential jobs for us, people we depend on, and yet there's this very public attitude of telling them 'you don't belong here.' There's just a real lack of compassion in how we treat immigrants and those who have the least and are left out of the community."

And besides, Steakley thought, who offers that he "came up in a Christian household with lots and lots of Bible study," didn't the story of Jesus specifically demonstrate how he embraced the overlooked strata of society?

"What would happen if Jesus looked like one of these people in Austin who everyone is so dependent on but doesn't welcome?" Steakley said. "And also, what would happen if Jesus didn't look like the majority of people who come to Zach?"

When Steakley took the helm as Zach Scott's artist leader in 1997, he specifically set out to do shows by and about African Americans such as "Jelly's Last Jam" and "Dreamgirls." "We needed to not only expand professional theater opportunities for African American actors and musicians in Austin and at Zach, but Zach needed to expand our audience to include more African Americans," he said.

While "Superstar" may be the first mainstage, professional bilingual production for Zach, the organization has made smaller forays into Latino-themed theater. Last year, through its Project Interact school outreach program, the organization commissioned "Alicia," a bilingual Spanish-English adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland." This year's Project Interact has another new bilingual children's play, "Tres Tales de Grimm."

"The response from schoolchildren and teachers has been really overwhelming," Steakley said of the two plays. "And it just reinforced for me that we need to apply that same opportunity to our mainstage offerings."

Steakley said he's relied on constant feedback and input from the Latino cast members — including Alejandra Munga, a recent transplant from Mexico City who played in two Mexican productions of Andrew Lloyd Webber mega-musicals "Cats" and "Starlight Express" — as he's incorporated aspects of Latino culture into the show. "I've asked the cast to speak up whenever anything doesn't feel sincere or authentic," he said. "They have and it's sparked some wonderful discussions.

"I don't think all aspects of (this production) are perfect. And it will incite some public dialogue and questions, not all of which will be comfortable. But I wouldn't expect that it would be. How else are we going to grow as an organization or am I going to grow as an artistic director? This is about me out of my comfort zone."

jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699