Posted on 04/28/2010 10:45:50 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
Bottom Line: Theatrical version of Green Day's acclaimed concept album will need to attract all of the band's fans it can muster. For all of the rock musicals that have appeared on Broadway in the decades since "Hair," "American Idiot" comes the closest to providing a theatrical equivalent to the music of the moment.
This adaptation of Green Day's critically acclaimed and huge-selling 2004 album stays pure to its inspiration, musically and aesthetically. But in terms of dramatic impact, it falls far short of predecessors like "The Who's Tommy," and it might prove a tough sell for audiences not predisposed to the band's music. The marketing folks have their work cut out for them.
Showcased in a hit engagement at Berkeley Rep, the 95-minute show incorporates all of the titular album as well as selections from the band's recent "21st Century Breakdown" and several other songs. The tenuous story line involves three main characters, all of them -- you guessed it -- disaffected suburban youth as they search for meaning in their lives.
For Johnny, the "Jesus of Suburbia," the solution is to head to the big city, where he finds a girlfriend, Whatsername (Rebecca Naomi Jones), but also falls prey to drug addiction at the hands of dealer St. Jimmy (Tony Vincent).
Tunny (Stark Sands) takes the patriotic route, enlisting in the Army and sent to Iraq only to wind up with one of his legs blown off. He finds solace in the arms of his nurse, the Extraordinary Girl (Christina Sajous).
Will (Michael Esper) stays behind, quickly finding himself struggling to support a wife (Mary Faber) and baby.
Although the original concept album is reasonably cohesive, it's a thin premise on which to base a musical, and the show's book, by the band's Billie Joe Armstrong and director Michael Mayer, doesn't manage to flesh it out sufficiently. Telling its story largely through music and movement with only a smattering of dialogue, "Idiot" never manages to make us care about the fate of its thinly drawn characters.
Still, there's a lot of passion onstage, and Mayer has provided the sort of propulsive staging that helps put the material over. Performing on a set lined with newspaper pages and featuring dozens of television monitors blaring apocalyptic messages, the actors never stop moving. Whether dancing in the frenzied manner that one would find in a packed rock club or performing an elegant aerial ballet, the youthful ensemble goes through their nonstop paces with breathtaking energy.
The musical score reflects the band's pop leanings, providing nicely melodic ballads to offset the harder-rocking material. Musical arranger Tom Kitt, a recent Pulitzer winner for his musical "Next to Normal," has effectively fleshed out the orchestrations for the eight-piece onstage band without diluting the music's raw power.
Gallagher, who has had experience with this sort of thing thanks to "Spring Awakening" (he also is a singer-songwriter), is impressively dynamic as Johnny. But he's well-matched by everyone in the cast, which delivers such well-known songs as "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," "21 Guns" and the title tune with the requisite fervor.
Venue: St. James Theatre, New York (Runs indefinitely) Cast: John Gallagher Jr., Stark Sands, Michael Esper, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Christina Sajous, Mary Faber, Tony Vincent Music: Green Day Lyrics: Billie Joe Armstrong Book: Billie Joe Armstrong, Michael Mayer Director: Michael Mayer Choreographer: Steven Hoggett Scenic designer: Christine Jones Costume designer: Andrea Lauer Lighting designer: Kevin Adams Sound designer: Brian Ronan Video/projection designer: Darrel Maloney Presented by Tom Hulce & Ira Pittelman, Ruth and Stephen Hendel, Vivek J. Tiwary and Gary Kaplan, Aged in Wood and Burnst Umber, Scott M. Delman, Latitude Link, HOP Theatricals and Jeffrey Finn, Larry Welk, Bensinger Filerman and Moellenberg Taylor, Allan S. Gordon and Elan V. McAllister and Berkeley Repertory Theatre in association with Awaken Entertainment and John Pinckard and John Domo
Showtunes PING
What do you expect from a liberal band who made a stage play based on an album that highlighted their hatred of the Bush Administration?
Yeah - it’s probably going to flop because the Messiah is now running the show.
Good Lord - a Green Day album turned into a Broadway show? What’s the next great inspiration for a theatrical production - the menu at Denny’s?
I like Green Day music. I think it’s well constructed, with nice hooks.
But I draw the line at supporting anyone with an album called “Amercian Idiot”. Even my kids won’t buy their garbage.
Green Day should have stuck to songs about smokin’ weed and masturbating. They now officially suck and they used to be great.
And of course in this tale, one American who signs up for military service in the wake of 9-11 is an “idiot” who gets his legs blown off.
And yet there is no such contemporary artistic criticism of our DNC coordinated media's daily talking points (”tea partiers are the new KKK, they use violent rhetoric such as calling the president's policies Nazi like”/”immigration reform rallies are largely peaceful, only a few plastic bottles thrown at police officers for now, only a few death threats against those who support the new Arizona law, and a media calling Arizona's law ‘nazi like’ in calling for ‘papers please’, just like AZ is now asking for presidential candidates in 2012...”
Yes, Virginia... there are American idiots. Billy Joe Eyeliner is too stupid to realize he's one of them.
I’m waiting for GWAR to take Broadway.
Personally, I think that's a perfect match.
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