Judas, The Crucified

Tim Minchin is suffering for his art, and he doesn't mind one bit. The arms of the acclaimed actor, cabaret performer and writer of musical theatre are covered in bruises as he works up the requisite passion to portray Judas in the touring production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's rock'n'roll musical Jesus Christ Superstar.

“It's because I told the guys playing the guards to stop being such pussies,” smiles Minchin. “They just weren't grabbing me. I have this scene where I'm screaming at Caiaphas and I told them 'You have to hold me back or I'm gonna tear his face off'. They said they didn't want to hurt me, so I called them pussies and then they really fucking hurt me.”

But any pain he may have incurred bringing the character to life is well worth it, Minchin feels. A long-time fan of the stage show, he freely admits to having zero objectivity about its excellence. “I started listening to it in my teens, did it in amateur theatre in my late teens, understudying the role of Judas, and I still think as a 37-year-old who is pretty involved with musical theatre that it's one of the best things ever written in the genre,” he says.

A Tony nominee for his songwriting work on the massively successful Matilda the Musical, Minchin has the bona fides to comment on what works and what doesn't. And to him, Jesus Christ Superstar works. “I kind of understand how hard it is to not fuck up a musical,” he says. “How many people do you know who say 'Oh, I hate musicals'? They don't hate musicals; they just hate musicals that don't work. Because it's fucking hard.”

All of which makes his admiration of Lloyd Webber and Rice's achievement all the more genuine. “Somehow at the ages of 21 and 25, these two went 'Yeah, let's write about the last week of Jesus' life but we'll write it like an atheist thing or at least a secular thing. And we'll put Judas at the centre of it, we'll give Judas the ethical dilemmas, we'll make him the protagonist, we'll have Jesus slightly caught up in his own press and we'll fucking kill Judas and then crucify Jesus. Will Jesus come back from the dead? The fuck he will – Judas will come back from the dead and sing a satirical rock song about religion!' The potential for this to be a load of crap is just massive but it's profoundly awesome! Can you even conceive of an equivalent now? Can you think of anyone willing to take that kind of risk now?”

Well, there is Minchin himself, whose cabaret work frequently explores themes of atheism and scepticism in a blackly comic fashion. But recent years have seen him interested in working in a more collaborative fashion. “I was craving that,” he says. “Comedy can send you a bit nuts because of its narcissistic nature. I became known as a comedian but for 10 years before that I was writing music for the theatre and trying to be known as an actor. And although I've long tended to write silly lyrics, as an actor I haven't done so much comic stuff. Back in Perth, back in the day, I played Mozart in Amadeus, I played Hamlet...this was not high-profile stuff but these were roles that defined me. And I found the challenge of going into the slightly shittier stuff, the darker part of human emotion, to be more attractive to me than comedy. And I guess that's reflected in my comedy, which isn't too cheap and cheerful.”

Consequently, playing Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar enables him to delve into such areas, although he claims he's not the type of performer who accesses any inner torment to convey that of his character.

“I don't get into a zone backstage,” he says. “The second before I go on I could be high-fiving someone or teasing them about something. And the second I get offstage, I'm off. But that's the thing about good text: if it's there on the page, you don't have to go all Stanislavski. You just have to go 'Where am I in this moment? I am pretending to this guy who's in a situation where a man he once loved, who was his best friend, is utterly letting him down'. The text drags you in. As someone who isn't highly trained and doesn't have years and years of experience, something as passionate as the role of Judas is perfect because there's no question about what his motivation is. He's just trying to get shit back on track. Now he's devastated, now he's hanged himself, now he's an angel. It's awesome.”

Technically it's proven to be a terrific challenge for Minchin as well. “The whole thing is written in a range no one sings now, unless you're a massively trained classical tenor – this is a screaming range,” he says. “As for the role itself, Judas starts off frustrated, gets furious, ends up so annoyed with Jesus' absolute refusal to listen to sense and absolute acquiescence to the pop-star bullshit he's going through that he thinks the only thing he can do to save this movement, which is about helping the poor, is dob him in to the authorities and get him off the scene. When he does that and sees what happens to Jesus as a result, he feels so guilty he hangs himself and then comes back from the dead. If you take seriously as an actor, it's a proper journey to go through.”

The acting bug has clearly taken a nip out of Minchin – one of his next projects is appearing alongside Toby Schmitz in a Sydney Theatre Company production of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead this August. (Interestingly, the two appeared together in a university production of the play back in the '90s.)

But that's just the tip of the iceberg, really. He's also penning songs for an animated musical for Hollywood studio DreamWorks, and by the end of the year he plans to get cracking on a new solo show he aims to premiere next year.

“I just hope I have enough to be angry about in the same general area,” he laughs. “In terms of rationalism and scepticism and logic and maybe even religion to an extent and how we make our subjective judgements about the world – my general field, I think – there's plenty to go around. But I don't want to keep banging on about Jesus and shit; I've sort of said what I want to say. So I'll sit down and look through my notes on what I've been angry about and see if I can turn it into stupid songs.”

WHO: Tim Minchin
WHAT: Jesus Christ Superstar
WHEN & WHERE: Friday 7 to Sunday 9 June, Sydney Entertainment Centre