The current revival of Hair, the original rock musical, was the first salvo, although it aimed more at Baby Boomers. It was quickly followed by Rock of Ages, the boisterous but amiable tribute to the big-haired metal bands of the ‘80s. There have even been a few outlying skirmishes like the emo-musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson that is running at the Public Theater through May 30.
But last week, they rolled out the heavy artillery: American Idiot, a stage version of the eponymous 2004 concept album by the punk revivalists Green Day opened at the St. James Theatre, where in recent years such Broadway classics as A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Gypsy have played.
The guys sitting in the row behind my sister Joanne and me probably think of a forum as an internet site where people exchange gripes, a gypsy as a punch line in a Monty Python routine, and a Broadway musical as something to be avoided at all costs. But there they were, four abreast, bottles of beer in hand (the audience is allowed to carry drinks to their seats) and fists pumping in the air as the guitars in the on-stage band screeched the title song that opens the show.
If you’re a diehard traditionalist, you may not like their being there or the show they’re championing. For this is really more a concert than a musical. The show is nearly all sung through and the lyrics are hard to follow without the album notes in hand or the words emblazoned in your memory from hours of repeat play.
Nor is there much of a book for American Idiot. The sketchy plot (concocted by Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong and the show’s director Michael Mayer, who won a Tony for the rock-inspired Spring Awakening) follows the lives of three blue collar guys who make bad choices—one becomes a teen dad, another signs up to fight in Iraq and the third is seduced into drugs by a Mephistophelean dealer known as St. Jimmy. (The bar in the St. James lobby has been temporarily named after the dealer and, clueless as I am, I thought at first that it was a play on the theater’s name).
But if you’re a more free-thinking fan of Broadway musicals then you may find yourself rooting for American Idiot. Its music isn't my genre of choice but I couldn’t help but respond to the enthusiastism of the young folks in the audience. Just as at the Metropolitan Opera House, the most avid and vocal fans are in the cheap seats up in the rafters. And so while, the greyheads around me in the orchestra sat largely stone-faced, the shaggy-haired ones in the balcony cheered after each number (click here to watch some highlights from the show).
Even I appreciated how Mayer pulled all kinds of tricks out of his hat (including aerial ballets) to camouflage the missing narrative. Christine Jones’ arresting set design is anchored by three dozen TV screens of different sizes that attempt to supply a storyline with news images from the last decade.
The energetic 19-member cast, lead by Spring Awakening’s John Gallagher, Jr. and the lovely and affective Rebecca Naomi Jones from Passing Strange, barely stops moving throughout the show’s 90 minutes, although I wish Steven Hoggett’s choreography had been less derivative of the moves Bill T. Jones did for Spring Awakening. I also wish Mayer had treated the black male characters less stereotypically; if the black guy in one number in the second act had a larger codpiece it might have poked me in the eye and I was sitting in the eighth row.
Green Day’s melodies, including some of the band's other songs interpolated into the score, are catchy enough but, at heart, this is a jukebox musical, which means what book there is has to be gerrymandered around the songs. I wish Armstrong (who has professed to have been a show-tune geek as a kid) and his bandmates had written an original score. But judging from the response of the guys sitting behind me, the show seems well on its way to winning the hearts and minds of its target audience.
The power shopping days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday are behind us but if you’re still looking for gifts to buy the theater lovers in your life (or to put on a wish list for someone to get you) here are 12 treats, one for each day of Christmas, that I’d love to find under the tree if I hadn’t already caved in and bought most of them for myself:
Tickets. D’uh. The one thing every theater lover wants is to see more shows and this year, the Theatre Development Fund is making it easier to satisfy that longing by offering TKTS Gift Certificates that can be use to buy reduced-price tickets on the day of the show at any one of the three TKTS booths in Manhattan and Brooklyn. They come in $25, $50 and $100 denominations.
Theater Ticket Album. It can be hard to keep track of all your tickets if you see lots of shows but this handy holder from the That’s My Ticket website keeps them all in one place. Or it could double as a keepsake filled with the stubs of all the shows seen in one season. $11.90 at that’smyticket.com
Kristin Chenoweth’s “A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas” CD. I have a weakness for Christmas music (and an embarrassingly large collection of Christmas CDs to prove it) but even if you tend to jingle to fewer of those bells, it’s hard to resist a collection of carols and holiday songs by Broadway’s inimitable cheer-bringer Chenoweth. $10.99 at Amazon.com
The Anton Chekhov Collection. This DVD collection brings together some of the world’s best classical actors (like Judi Dench, Michael Gambon, Patrick Stewart) in fully-filmed and beautifully-performed BBC productions of some of the theater’s most beloved plays (such as The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya). What theater junkie could ask for anything more? $53.99 at Amazon.com
The August Wilson Century Cycle. The scripts of all 10 of Wilson’s landmark plays chronicling the experience of African-Americans in each decade of the 20th century are collected together in a gorgeous boxed set, complete with insightful introductions to each work by such commentators as Laurence Fishburne, Tony Kushner, Toni Morrison, and Frank Rich. It’s pricey but priceless. $129.36 at Amazon.com
On Broadway 2009 Wall Calendar. Palm Pilots and BlackBerries can’t replace the charm of an old-fashioned wall calendar, especially if it’s one that features reproductions of the original posters for classic Broadway shows like The Glass Menagerie and Show Boat. Published by the Library of Congress, this calendar also contains fun facts about each month’s featured show. $13.99 at Amazon.com
How Does the Show Go On: An Introduction to the Theater. What’s Christmas without a pop-up book or an advent calendar? This combo, written by Disney honcho Thomas Schumacher and Jeff Kurtti, is a doozie, even if it only cites Disney musicals. It was created to introduce kids to the theater but is filled with enough great stuff (like swatches for costumes from The Lion King and the stage manager’s cue notes for the now-departed Tarzan) to appeal to the inner child in every theater geek. $17.21 at Amazon.com
Historic Photos of Broadway: New York Theater: 1850-1970. Beginning with a portrait of Junius Brutus Booth and his young son Edwin and ending with a shot of the naked cast from the original production of Hair, this book is filled with rarely seen photos, all drawn from the Billy Rose collection at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The one of a young and very sexy Arthur Miller suggests that Marilyn Monroe was turned on by more than just his mind and is, all by itself, worth the price of the volume. $31.96 at Amazon.com
The Wicked Music Box. Over 3 million people have seen this mega-musical twist on "The Wizard of Oz" so chances are you know someone who loves it. Or love it yourself. If so, then this official keepsake, which plays the show’s “Defying Gravity” anthem and comes with a seasonally-appropriate snow globe, is for you. $75 at playbillstore.com
Stephen Sondheim The Story So Far. Anyone who loves Sondheim already has the songs on this box set in their collection but there are just enough extra goodies to add some holiday cheer, including a 76-page booklet filled with nifty photos drawn from Sondheim’s own personal photo albums and a few rehearsal songs sung by the master accompanying himself on piano. $35.99 at Amazon.com
Essential Shakespeare Handbook. The folks at DK Publishing, who made their name with lavishly-illustrated travel guides, have brought their distinctive touch to this visually-rich guide to the Bard’s plays. There’s a scene-by-scene summary of each one, a who’s who of the characters, famous quotes, historical and literary analysis and marvelous images ranging from illustrations for 19th century productions to photos for 21st century ones. $24.50 at Amazon.com
The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II. Truth be told, I don’t have this one. But a previous book in the series, "The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter," has been on my bookshelf for years and is one of my great joys. The new book, which just came out, has collected the lyrics of more than 850 songs of arguably the most influential Broadway lyricist ever (and the mentor to Stephen Sondheim). It’s an enchanting gift for anyone who’s obsessive about musicals. $40.95 at Amazon.com
Unlike so many baby boomers, I can’t claim a special relationship with the musical Hair. I didn’t see the original production that opened in 1968 and played for 1,750 performances. I didn’t catch the 1977 revival that ran for just 43 performances either. Nor did I see the 2004 benefit concert with Raúl Esparza, Harvey Fierstein, Lillias White and RuPaul. I did rent the 1979 movie directed by Milos Forman but found myself wondering what the fuss was all about. And I walked out of the 2001 Encores! production of the show and totally missed the three anniversary performances that played in Central Park last year. Still, I jumped at the chance to see the Public Theater’s current production in the park when my friend Red Press, the show’s musical contractor, graciously offered to get me house seats.
The new production has gotten rave reviews. Cynics point out that the praise is coming primarily from baby boom-aged critics, eternally nostalgic for their youth. Still, people of all ages are lining up for hours to get tickets for each evening’s performance. Or, according to a recent piece in the New York Times, paying people to stand in line for them. (Click here to read the Times piece.) My sister told me that my niece Jennifer, who was born seven years after the original production closed, was dying to see the show and so I invited her to come with me.
After a tasty and thrifty dinner at Pinch: Pizza by the Inch on Columbus Avenue, where I had a custom made pizza of smoked mozzarella and hot sausage and Jennifer, already model-thin but paying extra attention to what she eats because her boyfriend is coming home from serving in Iraq, had a salad, we headed over to the outdoor Delacorte Theater in the park. The weather this time of year is fickle, with cool evenings often following even the balmiest days so I packed shawls—and we ended up being grateful that we had them. The audience was the usual patchwork quilt of New Yorkers and everyone—including me—seemed to be having a good time. But the moment the first notes of the opening song "Aquarius" sounded, the 50 and 60-year olds in the crowd began to act up: swaying in their seats, mouthing the words to the songs and sometimes even singing aloud.
Hair, as everyone knows, is plotless but centers around a “tribe” of hippies, trying to balance the lures of the sexual revolution, the emerging black power movement, the growing drug culture and rising antipathy towards the unpopular Vietnam War against the conservative ideals of their parents’ generation. It’s a comprehensive catalog of the major trends of its time. And the folks at the Public are taking every opportunity—including references in the Playbill notes and the pre-show turn-off-your-cell-phones announcement—to draw parallels with current events. Although what struck me is how different things are (the war in Iraq grinds on but there is no widespread anti-war movement as there was against the war in Vietnam; and what happened to all that peace and love the original Hair celebrated?).
But what eventually won me over was the music. Galt MacDermot’s tunes are delightfully infectious and Gerome Ragni and James Rado’s lyrics are equally joyful. Hair is arguably the last musical to have so many of its songs cross over onto mainstream culture--everyone from the rock group Three Dog Night to "American Idol's" Jennifer Hudson has recorded the ballad "Easy to Be Hard". My freshman college roommate played the album constantly and I developed a lingering familiarity with the songs even though I had no idea how they fit into the show.
All of the songs are exuberantly performed by the current young cast, lead at the performance we attended by Will Swenson as the charismatic leader of the tribe Berger, Christopher J. Hanke as his conflicted friend Claude, Caren Lyn Manuel as the passionately political Sheila, and Patina Renea Miller as the astrologically-guided earth mother Dionne. They all clearly loved pretending to be hippies, even if they didn’t totally capture the essence of the period. And the oldsters in the audience, even those who themselves never got closer to being hippies than wearing love beads and headbands, seemed to love what they were doing too. Everyone—the kids who discovered granola in the '60s and those who now pay $6 a bag for it at Whole Food—was clearly desperate to reclaim the optimism of that time.
The original production was famous for its nude scene, where the entire cast (with the now legendary exception of a young Diane Keaton) took all their clothes off. They do it in the current production too, although, of course, no one is scandalized now. Instead, the high point of the evening comes during the fully-clad encore of "Let the Sun Shine In" when audience members are invited to come on stage and dance with the cast. It's a prefab happening but so many people raced up to join in that I feared the stage might collapse. Eventually security guards had to turn people away. But there is already talk of moving the show, now extended in the park through Sept. 14, to Broadway so maybe they’ll get their chance then.
