After seeing Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar at Regent’s Park Open Air theatre in London, I tweeted that there is nothing nicer than being taken by surprise by a show. Timothy Sheader’s revival is an unexpected delight: it embraces the piece’s youthful exuberance and plays to its concept album and rock concert antecedents, while delivering a thoughtful swipe at the dangers of fundamentalism.
But I had trudged towards Regent’s Park with the memory of the crucifying one-star stadium version of Jesus Christ Superstar in 2012 still vivid. The surprise of discovering just how well Lloyd Webber and Rice’s piece can work added immensely to the evening’s pleasure.
Surprise often comes with the shock of the new, partly because too much expectation about a show dulls the senses. I’m thinking of seeing the unknown Gregory Burke’s electrifying Gagarin Way, or stumbling across 1927’s Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea at Edinburgh in 2007, or watching Jonathan Harvey’s Beautiful Thing at London’s Bush theatre in 1993. There’s an exhilaration in being part of an audience that has seen something really special, something that most of the world still doesn’t know about. After seeing Black Watch in 2006, I recall how the audience could hardly contain their excitement as they left the Traverse in Edinburgh. Complete strangers were beaming at each other.
The best moments are when theatre defies all expectations. Such as a thrilling Brecht revival when you didn’t think you liked Brecht all that much, or a Chekhov production that makes you rethink a play you secretly thought was a wee bit dull. It’s particularly the case with material that has been flogged to death. John Doyle’s staging of Fiddler on the Roof at the Watermill in 2002 made me change my mind about that musical. And Polly Findlay’s recent As You Like It at the NT made me giddy about a play I’ve thought I ought to like but have often found less than scintillating. Mind you, I’m still waiting for a truly thrilling revival of Antony and Cleopatra.
I’d love to know which productions have taken you by surprise and made you realise that you were glimpsing a bold new talent – or which revivals have made you see a play anew.
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