Kitsch turned up to 11: the second coming of 'Jesus Christ Superstar'

Canadian musician Peaches has made the hit 1970s rock musical palatable to a hip young Berlin audience, writes DEREK SCALLY,who attends opening night

WHEN Jesus Christ Superstarpremiered on Broadway in 1971, outraged Christian groups picketed the Mark Hellinger Theatre demanding the curtain come down for good on the show.

Now schoolchildren around the world perform the rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice without parents batting an eyelid about the subject matter: a Jesus who has an affair with Mary Magdalene and gets himself killed after ignoring the advice of his well-meaning friend, Judas.

When the curtain almost didn't come up on the latest incarnation of the show in Berlin, it was not because of a Christian campaign but because of the cold feet of copyright holders.

Canadian singer and performer Peaches applied for the rights to present the show in her adoptive home of Berlin, accompanied on piano by Chilly Gonzales. When she was denied permission by the German publisher, she fumed on Twitter that her stripped-down, one-woman production had been "crucified before opening night".

Within days, proving once more that there's no such thing as bad publicity, her complaint had reached the ears of lyricist Tim Rice. "I believed that someone somewhere near Tim Rice or Andrew Lloyd Webber had heard of me and would convince them to take this crazy leap of faith with me," she says. "I just wanted to get across my love of the music without a huge song and dance."

Permission came for just three performances and, last week, the curtain finally rose on the Canadian singer's labour of love.

Peaches Christ Superstarisn't the Superstar of your school musical days: there are no bedsheets and no disciples in sight, let alone a bearded man. Instead, Chilly Gonzales cranks out the show's opening riff on a grand piano as Peaches drifts onto the stage of the Hebbel Theatre, a vision in white: sweeping collar on top and tight white leggings below.

Over the next two hours, with neither explanation nor exposition, she leads the young Berlin hipster audience through a 40-year-old telling of a 2000-year-old drama, boiled down to its essence.

"I know that people have a lot of trepidation about musicals but this is a story that just keeps being retold, and it has such strong music," says Peaches. "A huge production can actually overshadow the passion the music has."

BORN MERRILL NISKERto a Canadian Jewish family, Peaches was drawn to the piece more by the music than the Jesus angle. But it's one thing to sing the album in your bedroom as a 15-year-old, as she did, and something else to play all the roles before a too-cool-for-school paying audience in Berlin.

To win over the doubting Thomases, Peaches and Gonzales have brought the piece back to its roots, the 1970 rock concept album starring Deep Purple front man Ian Gillan, and Yvonne Elliman and Murray Head.

With no distractions, the score glows as it runs the gamut from throbbing rock anthems to the sweet, soiled innocence of Mary Magdalene's ballad, the show's hit song, I Don't Know How to Love Him. Through it all, the unexpected guest star of the evening is Peaches's versatile voice, which she tells me she deliberately reined in until now.

"When I started out I didn't want my voice to overshadow what I set out to do - I wanted to create my own world first," she says of her rock and electronic music, which challenges gender stereotypes and plays with taboos. In the last decade she has attracted huge attention and audiences with singles like Fuck the Pain Awayand albums Fatherfuckerand Impeach my Bush.

Since those early flirtations with minimalist beatbox rhythms, she's branched out into soul, dance and other genres in recent releases. Now she says she's ready to let her real voice out.

She says: "If you look at people who show technique first and then assert their philosophy it doesn't seem as real." With Peaches Christ Superstar, she's no hard-up musician agreeing to be the celebrity cast member for a long-running show. Instead she's a performer in full control, at the peak of her career, bringing this remarkably solid material to a new, young audience.

The show's many rock numbers make sure the audience isn't too disoriented by the experiment, allowing Peaches rip through the second act in gold lamé jacket and tights. Through the evening she is accompanied, challenged and pushed on by the ferocious accompaniment of Gonzales on grand piano .

He channels a full orchestra and rock band onstage, soaking the piano in sweat and giving the keys a Jerry Lee Lewis-style hammering. It works beautifully, though their decision to spare all exposition makes the show a little difficult to follow for anyone unfamiliar with the material, something that could be corrected by a brief plot synopsis.

With themes of celebrity worship, prostitutes finding true love and politicians haunted by their consciences, the piece still bristles with ideas and an almost indecent number of strong melodies.

By the end of the evening the audience is entranced when, in a last moment of provocation, a huge, pink cross of glistening bone and gristle topped with a phallic head is lowered from the gods. Peaches is hoisted into place for her big finish while a group of dancers materialise from the audience to perform the title song, with the 1970s kitsch factor turned up to 11.

Yet even now Peaches keeps to the narrow path between kitsch and tragedy she's trod all evening. Her "forgive them, Father, for they know not what they're doing" garners a huge laugh from the audience not quite sure what they're watching. But when, with her final breath she commends her spirit into her Father's hands, and leaves the audience in charged silence.

It's quite a second coming for Peaches, for a once notorious Jesus musical and for musicals in general. For Germans in the audience, the evening is a revelation. Most of them understand the musical to be a plastic, commercial theatre form that began life with the 1986 Hamburg import of Cats.

For anyone worried that the musical form is slowly dying, Peaches Christ Superstaris a ray of hope. Even if new composers and new material are thin on the ground, the Berlin show proves that older works are robust enough to be rethought and retold for modern audiences - as long as the rights holders release their works from interpretative corsets to let them breathe again.

After a four-minute standing ovation, an unusual sight among hard-to-please Berlin audiences, the buzz is uniformly positive.

"It wasn't as provocative as I was expecting, but that was probably the point," says Michael Jakob from Potsdam.

"I think Peaches struck a perfect balance between the kitsch and moving elements of the material," says Henrike from Berlin.

Her friend Maria agrees: "She didn't take the work apart or make fun of it. It wouldn't work as a long run, but it definitely should be seen again."

The future of the production is up in the air. The German publishers came to the show and were reportedly impressed by the production itself and by the youthful audience it attracted. Peaches says she's not done with Jesus just yet: "I'd love to take it out there as far as it will go."

The opening night audience drifts happily off into the night, more than one singing the infuriatingly catchy title melody.

It's certainly one way to begin Holy Week, with a one-woman passion play packed with honest to-goodness-passion.