Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lyrics by Tim Rice. Directed by Ryan Mooney and Anna Kuman. Presented by Fighting Chance Productions, in association with Renegade Arts Company. At the Waterfront Theatre on Friday, August 7. Continues in rep until August 22

The musical Jesus Christ Superstar can be dopey. It’s also extremely difficult to perform. Given those odds, it’s impressive that this amateur mounting makes it work sometimes.

In the story, we’re in Christ’s last days. Judas is worried because others are starting to treat Jesus like God and Jesus is buying into it. Mary Magdalene is in love with the messianic leader, and against his will, Judas finds himself betraying Christ.

The dopiness is most apparent in Tim Rice’s lyrics, including the unbeatable “Always hoped that I’d be an apostle/Knew that I would make it if I tried/Then when we retire, we can write the gospels/So they’ll still talk about us when we’ve died.” Wait. That might not be unbeatable. There’s also this, sung at the Last Supper: “What’s that in the bread?/It’s gone to my head.”

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music is much more successful. The show features a passel of memorable tunes, including “Everything’s Alright”, “Hosanna”, “King Herod’s Song”, and “Superstar”.

A bunch of the other numbers are essentially rock-opera screaming: both Jesus and Judas are required to blow notes out the tops of their heads that no adult male should be required to sing. Although the results can be impressive in a Robert Plant kind of way, they can also be relentless.

In this production, Ray Boulay makes an excellent Judas. He hits all of those insane notes—and the guy can act. Judas is a pawn in God’s plan and Boulay lets us feel the pain of that position—without ever letting the voltage drop: Superstar is a high-energy spectacle and Boulay has the show-biz confidence to fill it.

Unfortunately, Hal Wesley Rogers is less successful as Jesus. Rogers hits his notes, but he comes across as more shy than charismatic. Making matters worse on opening night, he played almost everything upstage in Act 1—which could be at least partly the directors’ fault. The sound mix was also dreadful in the first half: the band overwhelmed the singers, which was a particular problem for the relatively soft-voiced Rogers.

Vanessa Merenda lends her clear, powerful singing to Mary, but she gets none of the character’s emotional depth, which is a shame; soulfully interpreted, Mary’s songs, including “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” can be moving.

As performed by Sean Anthony, “Pilate’s Dream” is a highlight of Act 1. For once, the staging by directors Ryan Mooney and Anna Kuman is restrained, and Anthony takes full advantage of the focus, intelligently thinking his way through the lyrics.

Mooney also appears as Herod in “King Herod’s Song”. Mooney adds several witty asides and the number is fun, but it should be a showstopper and it doesn’t rise to that level, partly because Mooney’s movement is awkward.

In their directorial interpretation, Mooney and Kuman have fun, updating the musical to include obsessive use of cellphones, for instance, and using video to make political references and create mood.

This production of Jesus Christ Superstar is full of energy, and there’s some notable skill on display. What it really needs is more consistency, and that would have had to flow top-down from the directors.