“YOU CAN’T GET A TICKET FOR LOVE OR MONEY,” SAID A BEAMING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR RON ULRICH IN NEPTUNE’S LOBBY .
As Christ, Alfie Zappacosta treads the thinnest of lines between over-doing and under doing it. In the first act he all but sleep-walks through the role with an expression of profound melancholy on his face, except for his angry scourging of the moneylenders out of the temple. His songs are delivered softly and sweetly as though the effort of restraining his emotion exhausted him. In the second act he skillfully jacks up the ante, powerfully portraying his sense of betrayal in the Last Supper, his fear of death in the Garden of Gethsemane and his final agony as he is whipped and scorned and crucified.
