IS ANYONE REALLY AN IDIOT?

The evening started off quite well. A delightful dinner at Angus McIndoe, where we sat in the front window, able to do some people watching. Pretty cool seeing actors from other shows we have seen on their way to the theatre and as it turns out, we were seated next to one of the performers in AMERICAN IDIOT, which was the show we were going to see.

It had to happen eventually - a show that one of us liked/loved and the other disliked/hated. Cathy was absolutely miserable during the performance of AMERICAN IDIOT, which was due in part to a rather large and wide man seated directly in front of her, blocking the view, exacerbated by cigarette smoke from the stage wafting into the audience. Even without the large man and smoke, Cathy just hated almost everything about the performance. While Jeff certainly did not think this show is a real contender for the Tony Award for best musical (although buzz is that it may in fact be the front-runner), he found the show quite enjoyable.

AMERICAN IDIOT features the music of Green Day with lyrics by Billie Joe Armstrong, who co-authored the book with director Michael Mayer (EVERYDAY RAPTURE, SPRING AWAKENING, THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, etc, etc, etc). John Gallagher, Jr. (SPRING AWAKENING), Stark Sands & Michael Esper were well cast as the male leads who brought electricity to the stage (says Jeff). The female lead usually played by Rebecca Naomi Jones was played by understudy Leslie McDonel. Kudos to the design team, consisting of Christine Jones, Andrea Lauer, Kevin Adams, Brian Ronan and Darrel Maloney for fabulously over the top special effects and scenic design.

AMERICAN IDIOT is (at least according to Jeff) to 2010 what HAIR was to the 1960’s and what RENT was to the 1990’s; a hard hitting musical about the trials and tribulations of youth. Cathy agrees with this with one major caveat - she feels it lacked the emotion its forerunners had. Back to this show: Johnny, Will and Tunny, played respectively by Gallagher, Esper and Sands, are three young men who are best friends and embark upon life taking very different paths. Will finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant and he cannot join his friends; he spends almost the entire show sitting on a couch singing and smoking from a bong. Tunny joins the army and is sent overseas to fight; he spends most of the show in a hospital bed, although the dream sequence where he flies through the air with his army girlfriend was pretty cool. Johnny runs away and keeps on running while doing serious drugs. He is actually the American Idiot, who destroys his relationship with Whatsername (usually played by Rebecca Naomi Jones). Johnny is drawn on and off to an androgynous character named St. Jimmy, played by Tony Vincent. Although not obvious, it seems that Johnny goes back and forth between Whatsername and St. Jimmy. Whatsername leaves Johnny; Will’s girl leaves him, baby in tow and Tunny and his girlfriend stay together. The three guys eventually settle into normalcy and eventually return home and reunite.

Interesting to watch the differences over forty plus years (HAIR, RENT & AMERICAN IDIOT) and even more interesting to note the recurring themes; desire to break away from parents, sex, drugs, rock & roll, more sex, more drugs & more rock & roll, war, protesting war, return to normalcy.

AMERICAN IDIOT is quite loud with lots of flashing lights, an electric performance one might say, although the other may say “boring” despite the loud noise, music and lights. Nice that we disagree so amicably.

NEXT UP: THE 2010 AMERICAN THEATRE WING TONY AWARDS (unless we manage to see something else between now & June 13th).