Even via the display’s wackadoo requirements, Des McAnuff’s alt-futuristic revival, which simply opened on Broadway after enjoying at Chicago’s Goodman Theater in the summertime, has an informal courting with coherence. Does Tommy transform a cult chief, a proto-influencer, a tyrant, a sufferer or all the above? Does he come what may forestall growing older in his 20s? My head!
However by the point your mind catches up with the inconsistencies, McAnuff’s manufacturing has moved on, carried via one earworm after some other and wall-to-wall (actually) kinetic projections. A story of sensory deprivation advised thru sensory overload makes counterintuitive sense.
McAnuff no doubt has an intimate reference to the display. He tailored the Who’s 1969 rock opera, “Tommy,” with the band’s chief, Pete Townshend, and directed the musical’s unique model — which gained 5 of the 11 Tony Awards it used to be nominated for in 1993.
The primary motion kicks off in London in 1945, when 4-year-old Tommy (Cecilia Ann Popp on the efficiency I stuck) sees his father, Captain Walker (Adam Jacobs), kill his spouse’s lover (Nathan Lucrezio). Whilst Mrs. Walker (Alison Luff) shrugs off this drama — I assume that’s what they imply via stiff higher lip — the surprise renders the kid “deaf, dumb and blind,” because the 55-year-old lyrics bluntly put it.
Years go and we input the Fifties, when 10-year-old Tommy (Quinten Kusheba on the efficiency I attended) is abused via Uncle Ernie (John Ambrosino) and tormented via Cousin Kevin (Bobby Conte). Reflecting at the occasions is the grownup Tommy, performed via Ali Louis Bourzgui, a heartthrob who cuts a rather aloof, dreamlike presence in a ridicule turtleneck and balances finesse and gear as a singer.
The unique album, and Ken Russell’s movie adaptation from 1975, summoned a model of Townshend’s postwar years that’s concurrently grounded and fantastical. However this “Tommy,” this system informs us, takes position within the “previous, provide and long run.” When the identify personality turns into an idol, the display doubles down on a graceful dystopian aesthetic that made me wonder if we have been in a multiverse Britain all alongside. Sarafina Bush’s costumes nod to the rockers and mods of the Fifties and ’60s, however additionally they incorporate neo-fascist army garb. Every now and then, ensemble contributors put on individuality-denying mask that cause them to glance as though Daft Punk had taken up fencing.
The grayscale palette, with splashes of yellow as Tommy’s signature colour, creates an oppressive temper that’s bolstered via Amanda Zieve’s stark lights, David Korins’s stylized set and Peter Nigrini’s projections.
On the identical time, the manufacturing isn’t as radical as this description might recommend and recycles many inventive choices that experience calcified over the many years. Christina Sajous’s “Acid Queen,” for example, is a tepid model of what Tina Turner served up within the film. (It will be fascinating to peer a unique bodily take in this one quantity, or pay attention a performer lean extra towards Merry Clayton’s menacing gradual burn from the London Symphony Orchestra’s 1972 recording of the unique album.)
Nonetheless, the songs, that are frequently bite-size, stay as unique as they’ve ever been (which is why “The Who’s Tommy” will also be efficient in a semi-staged layout, as evidenced via Josh Rhodes’s manufacturing on the Kennedy Heart 5 years in the past). The ranking used to be very theatrical for a chart-topping rock band within the past due ’60s, but it surely’s additionally very rock via Broadway requirements, even now. The corporate walks that line, no less than vocally, higher than the only from 1993, which used to be extra Broadwayfied, and the orchestra, which is as loud because it must be, performs with a precision that doesn’t forsake power and the fun of riffage. What this “Tommy” is preaching could be a bit murky, but if all of the solid traces as much as face the target audience and belts the “Taking note of You” finale, via golly, you consider.
The Who’s Tommy, ongoing on the Nederlander Theatre in New York. 2 hours, 10 mins. tommythemusical.com.