Near the end of “The Passion” Sunday night on Fox, Seal wailed “Mad World” by Tears for Fears at a sobbing audience. The British musician, who played Roman governor Pontius Pilate, was right. It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world where the main anthem from “Donnie Darko” can double as Jesus’ executioner’s emotional ballad. On Palm Sunday, the network delivered a live musical version of the New Testament set in a modern-day New Orleans — also where the broadcast took place — narrated by a solemn Tyler Perry, featuring Trisha Yearwood as Mary and Chris Daughtry as Judas. Expectations for the messiah musical were, frankly, mild. The hype was a fraction of that of the other live, secular musicals that have aired on NBC and Fox. And viewership followed suit, coming in an estimated 46 percent lower than Fox’s very successful “Grease: Live” — 6.6 million viewers compared to 12.2 million viewers. But those who tuned in experienced a bombastic gospel fever dream as perplexing as it was earnest. But it wasn’t a dream. It was real, and Chris Daughtry was there and Tyler Perry and Seal and you, Auntie Em! If the gaudy lights and sappy ’90s tunes convinced you that you’d mistakenly clicked over to the Dutch channel, that’s because “The Passion” is a riff on an annual program aired in the Netherlands. “The Passion” has been shot in a different city there every year since 2011 (Gouda, Rotterdam, The Hague), so the US could be in for a wholesome new tradition. Fingers crossed. Was it actually live? Partly. Was it self-serious? You bet. Was it blissful and amazing in trying to figure out the next ’90s teen angst hit that Judas would belt out? Is the pope Catholic? The music was the night’s biggest shock — and brightest star. Audiences assumed they’d hear a sound somewhere in between “Jesus Christ Superstar” and the Christian faux-rock classic “Our God is an Awesome God.” Instead they got Katy Perry. She kissed a girl and she said 10 Hail Marys. St. Peter (Prince Royce) sang “The Reason” by Hoobastank, backed by a spirited choir, which made me realize how generic that song really is. “I’ve found a reason for me/To change who I used to be/A reason to start over new/and the reason is you” could be about a pizza on certain weeknights. I waited patiently for Mary Magdalene to enter and sing “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia — “I’m all out of faith! This is how I feel!” — but no such luck. The producers met me halfway by having Carla Hall, of “The Chew,” hand Jesus fish and bread from a food truck. Fox cast “One Direction”-style ties as Christ and his posse. Their bad-boy stubble was so precise it probably took a dedicated team of trimmers. Jencarlos Canela, playing sexy Jesus, was notably authentic and moving in Jesus’ final moments, and his climactic song of triumph, — Katy Perry’s “Unconditionally” — was delivered thrillingly from the roof of a nearby building. A less successful element of the broadcast, though no less intriguing, was a group of people schlepping a 20-foot illuminated cross through New Orleans, with a Fox reporter doing on-the-scene interviews with chatty marchers. The spontaneity of the ambushes was exciting, if incredibly awkward. Hilarious though “The Passion” was, the live audience standing outside in New Orleans — a city that’s been through a lot — was visibly emotional. Many were crying and embracing their loved ones while they listened to Yearwood sing Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” — a prescient song for the city. Whether laughing or in tears, it’s always a good thing when Americans come together.
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