It's fun watching a train crash: 'The Ten Commandments'

The Ten Commandments: The Musical
October 10, 2004
Kodak Theatre, Hollywood

The premise in and of itself is enough to make a theatre-goer raise an eyebrow: a musical about the ten commandments, that giant bible epic about Moses and the Red Sea? Add on top of it, Val Kilmer (the advertising for the show comically and dramatically read "Val Kilmer is Moses"). Bible stories can sometimes make interesting theatre - "Jesus Christ Superstar" has its appealing moments in the right productions - but generally, overbearing Christian morality can make for dreary theatre, as the "strong moral message" overrides any kind of dramatic conflict or potential.

As it turns out, "The Ten Commandments" is even worse than one could have imagined. It's a long-winded attempt at turning the Ten Commandments story into a live pop-music video. Forget your fears about an overbearing Christian message: this show seems almost afraid of mentioning the word "God," instead turning the whole affair into a bland pop-concert. It's a parade of really bad Top-40s inspired numbers, complete with Britney-Spears style dancing and Celine Dion-sounding ballads. Some of the lyrics are laughable. Moses' wife, Zyppora, sees Moses for the first time and croons, "Oooh, he's so fine!" Then, at one point, there's the endless chanting of, "He's gotta die, He's gotta die, He's gott die" while Moses gets put on trial.

The set looks like Ancient Egyptian ruins - with columns dominating most set features - framed by large video screens. At certain spiritual moments, the screens will flash swirling images of the cosmos to create atmosphere. Oh yes, and the best part: as the Jewish slaves prepare for the Dark Angel to pass during the Plagues, we get a shot of red splotches being photoshopped onto the doorways of each slave household. It's as though someone took a moving screen shot of someone actually inserting the red splotches on photoshop.

Admittedly, though, its kind of fun to watch the show unfold. What else will they think of next, you wonder as the train rumbles onward. Though this isn't the disaster of epic proportions that everyone will think of for years to come, it certainly is a pretty bad show.