In 1988, I sat in the audience of the Source Theatre in Washington, D.C. and watched my brother play a Vietnamese nun. In fact, I watched Michael play 27 different characters. He was starring in How I Got That Story, a play about Vietnam. It was written for two actors. Michael won the 1988 Helena Hayes Award, given to the best actor in D.C., for his performance.
All of which is to say that it’s fine that Cynthia Erivo, an actor and black queer person, was picked to play Jesus Christ in a staging of the musical Jesus Christ, Superstar that’ll open this summer at the Hollywood Bowl. When it was announced that Erivo got the role, conservative media erupted. This response from John K. Amanchukwu was typical: “With all due respect, and humbly submitted, Cynthia Erivo is too BALD, BROWN, and BI to play Jesus. Casting a woman as Jesus Christ is an intentional form of blasphemy that Hollywood would be fuming over if done to certain other religions.”
Conservatives forgot to ask the basic question that’s fundamental to their philosophy: Is Erivo the best person for the job?
The answer is yes—or at least one of the best. Erivo is a Daytime Emmy, Grammy, and Tony winner, as well as an Oscar nominee. She was fantastic in Wicked and previously portrayed Mary Magdalene in Morgan James' all-female Jesus Christ Superstar album. Erivo performed "I Don't Know How to Love Him."
My experience with my brother offered me a lesson in letting great actors portray anyone—or even anything. How I Got That Story was written by Amlin Gray. Gray was a medic in the Vietnam War, and his play is the account of a reporter “embedded” in a fictional country (it's actually Vietnam) as a correspondent. There are two roles. One is The Reporter, who’s in country covering the war. The other is The Historical Event, a representation of Vietnam’s history, people, and politics in the 1960s in its entirety. The Historical Event includes several American soldiers, the dictator of the country (Madame Ing), a Vietnamese nun, and The Reporter’s boss, Mr. Kingsley of TransPanGlobal News.
I’ll never forget sitting in that audience astounded as I watched Michael transform into the different characters. If staged today the left would most likely object to a white Irish-Catholic kid playing Vietnamese women, but then again the 1980s were a more adventurous and free time. Furthermore, in the 1973 film JCSS, Judas was unforgettably played by Carl Anderson, a black man. To have withheld the role from Anderson for racial reasons would’ve deprived the world of one of the great performances of all time.
Let's honor the art. There’s no need for the left to start hollering about representation and how Jesus may have been queer because his friends were men or any of their other nonsense. It’s also not necessary for the right to rant about blasphemy and wokeness and evil Hollywood. As I’ve argued before, if the right doesn’t like it, we can put on our own plays and make our own movies. (This never happens because conservatives, like liberals, are addicted to the culture of complaint. It gives them a high they don’t want to relinquish. It’s why someone like Megyn Kelly, who was given a golden opportunity to produce some great journalism, is doing nothing these days but issuing rants.)
Sit back and enjoy the show. Erivo celebrated the news of her biblical casting on Instagram recently: "Just a little busy this summer," she wrote. "Can't wait!” Me too.
Performances for the musical from composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice will begin Aug. 1 at the Hollywood Bowl and run through Aug. 3. Sergio Trujillo will serve as director and choreographer, while Stephen Oremus is musical director and conductor. Additional casting will be announced later.
How about Timothee Chalamet as Pilate?