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literallyjcstrash · 7 years

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Regarding lyrics to JCS… (part 5 of many)

Hello again, gdelgiproducer here! I’m back with more lyrics from JCS, covering both the changes to the show over the years and also doing a little extended analysis. I wanna start this particular entry off by thanking literallyjcstrash for giving me a platform, especially when I’m using it to do what I very easily could have done at my own blog jcs-study, which is now basically on a respirator like many projects that I lose my initial enthusiasm for. (Honestly thinking of asking them to consider a merger where I port some of my posts from there over here. Not kidding.) They fired up my years-long but frequently comatose enthusiasm for the show and got me thinking about it again, which is always great – coming back to an old love with fresh perspective isn’t something one can do very often (outside of Hollywood movies), so I’m glad I can do it here.

Today, we glance at what I feel is one of the most important songs in JCS, which is mildly ironic considering it only appeared in the 1973 film version and has rarely appeared in stage versions of the show since (usually in Europe). I speak, of course, of “Then We Are Decided." Believe it or not, this song sharply divides fans of the show. A certain amount of people like it; a fairly equal amount of people don’t care for it at all. Even Tim Rice sort of slides past its existence when writing about the film in his autobiography, saying merely that ”… Andrew and I did expand one of the High Priests’ scenes in a futile bid to quash further anti-Semitism charges at the pass.“

It’s not like that didn’t need attention. For those who don’t know JCS very well, Caiaphas and Annas, the Jewish High Priests, come off as sort of the only one-note figures in the original album and stage versions. Their motivation is basically hand-waved and sounds like typical "baddie” bullshit, they sing the same musical themes throughout the show (they do; check literally every song the priests appear in, every single melodic motif they perform is tied in some way to “This Jesus Must Die”), and they smack of the old Christ-killer stereotype. How much of that is due to ingrained anti-Semitism in the story thanks to the original Gospel texts is up to the viewer (or listener) to decide. Tim and Andrew certainly didn’t set out to tell an anti-Semitic story, I totally buy it when they say that, but the conventions of musical theater unfortunately wind up placing the portrayal of the “villains” squarely in the old-fashioned, all-too-familiar “Passion Play” territory.

I mean, look at the treatment other characters get compared to Caiaphas and Annas. Everyone looks at JCS as “the piece which humanizes Jesus and Judas,” but it really doesn’t stop there. In reality, the piece offers the chance to any who might take it to humanize the story in its entirety. Pilate was a person, with conflicts and reservations; Mary was a person with desires, both emotional and sexual; Peter was a person, with regrets and hope. Tim Rice takes these cardboard cut-outs from the Bible and infuses them with psychological motivation, with flesh and blood, with life. He puts the stakes back in the story… except where Caiaphas and Annas are concerned.

(Okay, and Herod, but he only has, like, one song to establish himself in, and while he shouldn’t be played as broadly comic as he has been, in my opinion, he’s basically just comic relief to break some of the tension in Act Two – more about that when we get to him. Anyway, getting sidetracked…)

And that’s part of why I like “Then We Are Decided,” personally. It breaks up the monotony of the priests’ material a bit, and Caiaphas and Annas’ specific motivations are particularized in a way that they aren’t elsewhere in the show. Yes, for the purposes of the story they are (technically) the antagonist, but it is far more interesting to watch human beings struggle with a decision than it is to watch comic book villains verbalize what their purpose is. The audience should be frightened not by their appearance, costumes, characterization, or the pathos surrounding them; it should be the fact that they are able to come to the conclusion that this man (Jesus) is such a threat to their power, and that they prize their power so much, that they decide the only course of action is his death. This decision, and the zeal with which they pursue their goal, should be what is frightening, not the priests themselves. Caiaphas, Annas, and the other priests were real human beings, too; let them be three-dimensional figures!

(Now seems an important moment to note this: I find it most interesting that, at least in my estimation, Caiaphas and Annas seem to generate the most head-canon in the JCS Tumblr fandom of any secondary character in the show, and I think it’s partly because their motivations and background are among the least explored of anyone’s in the show – again, aside from Herod, and maybe Simon or Peter.)

Anyway, time to give you some motivations and background before we dive into the lyrics (which have never changed all that substantially, same as “What’s the Buzz,” but then I still love an excuse to talk about the show):

Caiaphas, as High Priest, was the chief religious authority in the land, with important responsibilities including controlling the Temple treasury, managing the Temple police and other personnel, performing religious rituals, and serving as president of the Sanhedrin (sort of the Jewish Supreme Court, which ruled on both religious [always] and civil [where Rome granted them jurisdiction] matters). Unlike other Temple priests, Caiaphas lived in Jerusalem’s Upper City, a wealthy section inhabited by the city’s powers-that-be.

The Bible suggests Caiaphas was closely advised by Annas, the older former High Priest, who served as a sort of high priest emeritus to his younger son-in-law. Yes, Caiaphas was married to Annas’ daughter, which incidentally is probably how Caiaphas got the gig. (That doesn’t mean you should stop writing slash fic; hell, adds a whole creepy new layer if you ask me.)

The priests had to toe a fine line between serving as the spiritual leaders of their people and cooperating with Roman authority. This left them respected for their positions, but despised by some for actions the priests had to take, or in some cases actions that they thought the priests took.

So, with that context, let us set the scene for “Then We Are Decided.” It’s after hours, or they wouldn’t be able to snag a minute alone to converse about this matter, between the faithful asking for prayers and blessings, fellow priests bothering them with office politics, the sacrifices, preparation for the upcoming Passover festival, whatever shit Rome is ladling into their tureen that day, etc. So this is the only moment available – and this is key – for Caiaphas to seek Annas’ advice on a most pressing matter: a Galilean rabble-rouser growing in popularity. Annas’ first instinct is to be hands-off, but Caiaphas feels the need for more direct action.

Why is that key? Well, for some reason, it feels like the 1973 film stages it the opposite way, with Annas pressing Caiaphas’ buttons to push him toward the decision (seriously, take a gander at some of Kurt Yaghjian’s facial expressions, especially on “He’s a craze” – dude would have killed it in a Seventies version of Bates Motel), but the lyrics strongly suggest that Caiaphas is trying to convince Annas to back up his position, not being pushed into a firmer stance by a weasel-voiced toady. With the added historical context above, it’s not hard to read “Decided” the way it was likely intended to be performed.

And now, the lyrics!

CAIAPHAS We’ve been sitting on the fence for far too long…

ANNAS Why let him upset us? Caiaphas – let him be All those imbeciles will see He really doesn’t matter

CAIAPHAS Jesus is important We’ve let him go his way before And while he starts a major war We theorize and chatter

ANNAS He’s just another Scripture-thumping hack from Galilee

CAIAPHAS The difference is they call him king – the difference frightens me What about the Romans When they see King Jesus crowned? Do you think they’ll stand around Cheering and applauding? What about our people If they see we’ve lost our nerve? Don’t you think that they deserve Something more rewarding?

ANNAS They’ve got what they want – they think so anyway If he’s what they want why take their toy away? He’s a craze

CAIAPHAS Put yourself in my place I can hardly stand aside Cannot let my hands be tied I am law and order What about our priesthood? Don’t you see that we could fall? If we are to last at all We cannot be divided

ANNAS Then say so to the council But don’t rely on subtlety Frighten them or they won’t see

CAIAPHAS Then we are decided?

ANNAS Then we are decided.

See how that works? Now to get to some more opinion on the song, and its place in the show!

There are two reasons “Then We Are Decided” is rarely included in the stage show. The first is that, at least in America, the copyright for the song belongs to the film studio, and it’s not part and parcel of the stage production, like later changes (including “Could We Start Again Please”) were. To use it in a stage production would need a separate negotiation/fee, and productions in the U.S. that have slipped the song into the show in the past without getting rights (such as a production in the Eighties by the Candlewood Playhouse) have been legally censured by the licensing agency.

(Part of me wonders if that’s going to change in the near future. Andrew Lloyd Webber recently started his own licensing agency in the U.S., The Musical Company, which has taken over the licensing for all of his shows and his song catalogue in the States. The thing I’ve noticed about productions in the States vs. Europe including “Then We Are Decided” is that it happens way more often in Europe than over here, and I’ve theorized that this may be the case because Webber’s Really Useful Group handles everything in-house overseas with regard to publishing of individual songs and licensing said songs, whereas in America the rights situation has always been more complicated, needing to go to Universal to beg for permission separately from the rights one would hire from an agency like R&H, which handled JCS until recently. Thanks to Webber’s new licensing set-up, “Then We Are Decided” and the rights to JCS are under the same roof in North America for the first time. It would certainly make getting the permissions easier since one only has to go to one shop. Time will tell if my theory is correct and it was just a matter of lining up all the ducks in the same row, metaphorically speaking. Again, tangent, sorry, moving on…)

The second, and less explored owing to its rarity, reason is that its position in the film simply does not work on stage. On film, one is able to cut away from “Strange Thing, Mystifying” (“they only need a small excuse / to put us all away”) and increase the tension by showing the authorities are already thinking of dealing with the problem (e.g., Judas’ foreboding is not unfounded). On stage, however, interrupting the scene that incorporates “What’s The Buzz,” “Strange Thing, Mystifying,” and “Everything’s Alright” with “Then We Are Decided” ruins the arc of the scene — an uninterrupted rising dramatic line of tension, if you will.

A few of the productions that have used it over the years have tried to solve this problem by slotting it in after “Everything’s Alright” instead of before it, sticking it right before “This Jesus Must Die.” On paper, it makes sense – Caiaphas trying to convince Annas to back his position before the big council meeting, and then both of them making the pitch to the council. But in execution, put so close together, it only belabors the point of “the priests feel they must deal harshly with Jesus, and here’s why”; you hear two songs right in a row discussing basically the same plot point, with one of them being only slightly more personal (or interesting, for that matter) than the other. That’s called, in any style of writing, “beating a dead horse." An audience may or may not be as intelligent as we challenge them to be, but no audience likes feeling like the creative team believes they’re stupid enough that they have to be bludgeoned to death with story.

A friend and fellow JCS fan (who now works in reality TV – as they say on The Flintstones, "It’s a living!”) once came up with a novel suggestion: use “Then We Are Decided” as a prologue before the Overture. Right at the top of the show, you’ve got the priests, you establish their problem, they make the fateful decision, and we go right into the show knowing this man’s days are numbered and wondering what that’s about, with some foreboding sounding rock music to boot. Done right, I think it would be an interesting touch.

I then discovered that great minds must think alike, because a friend named Greg alerted me to the fact that director Ken Gargaro has been doing it this way for roughly 25 years with Pittsburgh Musical Theatre’s annual production of JCS. Precedent established, I feel way more confident putting forward this proposal, and I’ve even come up with how to make the musical transition seamless: instead of repeating the guitar intro to “Decided” at the end after Annas’ last line (which comes with a nice little helping of “Poor old Judas…” from – I believe – brass and lower woodwinds dumped over it on the film soundtrack that isn’t there in the movie), you cut the instrumental coda and go right into the Overture, likely accompanied by a bit of staging for dramatic effect to signal the transition into the show proper.

Just picture it…

Anyway, enough reverie. Coming soon: “Everything’s Alright”!

#jesus christ superstar #jcs #my mind is clearer now #yes really changed #then we are decided #caiaphas #annas #gdelgiproducer #submission

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