There
are two reviews to be written about American Idiot, they are
diametically opposed in perspective and conclusion and they are both valid.
Which one speaks to you will depend entirely upon your sensibility.
The
first review asseses American Idiot
as a musical. And it isn't one, save in the broadest definition of an evening
built upon song. In that sense, a revue isn't really a musical either, though
certainly in putting one together, one can (and usually should) provide a
structure grounded by an underlying thematic subtext. No, American Idiot is purely and at heart an extended rock music
video for the stage, that illustrates not merely a song but an entire album
(music by the group Green Day, music by guitarist-lead vocalist Billy Joe Armstrong), giving impressionistic image more weight than
linear narrative.
The
slenderest dramatic continuity (book by Armstrong and director Michael Mayer) has been superimposed upon the songs, which,
despite their chart popularity, are mundane riffs on the disenfranchisement of
American youth. (There is of course a visceral infectiousness to the music and
some of the lyrics, but genuine harmonic, melodic or even idiomatic
originality? no; at least not if you're old enough to have lived through
counter-culture rock manifestos of generations past.)
The
narrative, such as it is, concerns three city bred slackers who want out of
their going-nowhere existences (without once the question of "Whose fault
is that?" being raised). Will (Michael Esper) stays home to unwittingly father a kid and be
such a bust as a parent that his girl (Mary Faber) leaves him. Tunny (Stark Sands) goes off to fight Al Quieda and loses a leg in
battle for his trouble. Johnny (John Gallagher, Jr.) ventures into the city and meets both the woman
of his dreams (Rebecca Naomi Jones)
and the most charismatic drug dealer in the hood (Tony Vincent). Johnny misjudges the placement of his loyalty
and returns home more bereft than when he left, having undergone a Cold Turkey
detox that underscores what he himself regards as his fundamental uselessness.
(I know this all sounds like spoiler after spoiler, but I promise you, suspense
is at a BARE minimum, and nearly every turn is self-evident right from the git.
Additionally, every song is written at rock opera pace, which is musically very
active but narratively glacial [each song tends to hump a single declarative
sentiment], there don't seem to be even twenty lines of interpolated spoken
text, and none of the triumvirate of story threads goes any deeper than the time
it takes to thumbnail it.)
If
knowing this makes you suspect a show where you'll be bored, fidgety, angry or
even only impatient, that's almost certainly what to expect and you're well
advised to save your money.
The
second review of American Idiot
has to do with the piece accepted fully on its own terms, as an extended music
video based on a concept album, written by a current pop icon and recorded by a
hugely popular band. Green Day and the album have (obviously) many enthusiastic
fansŅand rock as a
musical/cultural form/phenomenon whose impact simply must not be
underestimated is fascinating to connoisseurs, "historians" and even
the casual observer/listener open to the vibe and the vocabulary; and for any
of you among them, American Idiot may
well be an important and exhilarating evening, that even more firmly
establishes a stronghold for rock in a mainstream theatrical setting. Michael
Meyers' multi-media staging (utilizing something over 30 TV screens strewn
across an abstract cityscape on whose rear wall exterior staircases climb up
several storeys) is well attuned to illustrating the visceral, cathartic throb
of a universe that is more about sensation than sense, and the cast are
committed body and soul, to put it mildly. Nothing is expressed by halves, and
no expectation or high standard that one drawn to such entertainment may
hold is likely to go unfulfilled.
Definitive
appraisals are impossible here, because so much depends upon mindset and tolerance.
All a critic can doŅif he includes responsible consumer advocacy among
his obligationsŅis report that for the kind of thing it is, American
Idiot is executed with all the bells, whistles and panache such an enterprise
requires. You have to decide if you'd be much into the kind of thing it is.
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