From the program: The star of Green Day with the stars of “American Idiot,” the Broadway musical
Primarily an art blogger, I don’t usually write about theater that I attend. But by coincidence, NY Times theater critic Charles Isherwood today reappraises the nearly nine-month-old production that riveted me this weekend—Green Day‘s American Idiot. It’s a musical based on a concept album with a narrative arc, in the rock-opera tradition of both The Who‘s “Tommy” and its “Quadrophenia” (both of which became movies and were later staged.)
As with the progenitor of Broadway rock musicals, “Hair,” and the more recent Billy Joel/Twyla Tharp dance-centric show, “Movin’ Out,” “American Idiot” brings us the solipsistic preoccupations of kinetic, disaffected youth against an ominous backdrop of war. This theme may have a new tragic resonance for those seeing the play after Saturday’s horrifying events in Arizona. (I was in the audience on Friday.)
The occasion for the Times critic’s return to the St. James Theatre was a recent return to the cast by Green Day’s frontman and brilliantly quirky lyricist, Billie Joe Armstrong, who is demonically demented (and I mean that in a good way) in the supporting, subversive role of drug-abuse enabler St. Jimmy—a name that I assume may have been derived from psychedelic rock saint of my era, Jimmy Hendrix, whose early death was thought to be drug-related.
My unique take on this much reviewed production comes from attending it with CultureDaughter and her boyfriend, and CultureSon and his wife. In a complete reversal of what I had expected, my husband and I were giddily enthusiastic about what we had seen, while the kids, who are contemporaries of Green Day’s fan base, were merely all right about it.
I actually own and have marveled at the “American Idiot” album, introduced to it long ago by my daughter’s then boyfriend, an acolyte of the band, with whom she attended several of the group’s concerts. To the middle-aged tag-alongs, the theatrical production was fresh, exciting and ultimately moving. To the twenty-somethings (with my 30-year-old son as the group’s elder), not so much. It was a bit shocking to me when I learned, in today’s Times’ Q&A with Armstrong (conducted by David Itzkoff, that Bille Joe is now a hoary 38, with wife and kids.
Green Day’s music ranges from the riotously cacophonous to ballads that you can almost croon like traditional showtunes. Added evidence of the soft-rock side of Green Day’s punk rock came after the conclusion of the play, when the otherwise snarling, leering Armstrong stepped stage-front for a mellow rendition of his all-too-familiar “Time of Your Life.” While watching the play, I had found myself wishing for him to have been assigned the vocals for the poignant, meditative “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” sung in the play by John Gallagher Jr. and Rebecca Naomi Jones, the lead actor and actress.
To my young theater companions, “American Idiot” reprised an overly familiar score. The sketchy plot line, single set and familiar punk-rock choreography (which struck me as idiomatic, lively and effective) didn’t, in their view, add much value to what they have previously experienced.
That, perhaps, helps to explain why the show has reportedly had attendance problems most of the time, whenever Billie Joe isn’t bolstering the box office. Not many people of my generation will flock to punk (as witness the Broadway fate of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, an innovative play with an original, punk-inflected score, in which I had haplessly played a bit part while it was still Off-Broadway). For my contemporaries, Million Dollar Quartet (which I haven’t seen) is all the rage.
“American Idiot’s” target generation, it seems, would rather attend a rock concert than a takeoff on a rock concert. For them, this is probably too much like a tribute band, at a time when the real group is still very much alive and definitely kicking.