American Idiot!
Chris and I got a chance to go and see the stage adaptation of American Idiot. It's a "rock opera" -- meaning that all the songs together tell a story -- hence the whole stage-adaption choice, which would be a weird thing to do to a normal album. And as some of the actors said in the "discussion" after the show, it was really strange to try to picture an album as angsty, offensive, and punk-y as American Idiot being made into a MUSICAL. When I think of musicals, I think of Pirates of Penzance and My Fair Lady, and although I adore both punk music and musicals, I didn't really see much of a chance for the two spheres to overlap successfully. But I was very pleasantly surprised!
It was in the Berkeley Rep theater, which I'd never been to before. The set was just epic! A steel stairway, a la fire escape, wound up the back-right corner of the stage to relatively extreme heights. Half of a car and a shopping cart hung suspended over the left-hand side of the stage. And the walls were completely PLASTERED with advertisements, posters, graffiti, you name it... and set into them were 40 or 50 plasma-screen televisions of various shapes and sizes. For most of the show, the stage floor was covered with discarded bits of newspaper, and furnished with a bed and a couch.
The representation of the music was very faithful -- much more so than I expected -- and the music was blaring loud. The singing was usually great, although I felt a little iffy toward the main character Johnny's rendition of American Idiot. I was so impressed by how IN SHAPE all the actors were, because everyone was constantly swirling, stomping, jumping and gesturing... and two of them even had to dance around up in the air, suspended by wires ... I was so impressed by the way everything swept along. The story had been expanded beyond what was technically implied by the album's original lyrics -- there were a few extra characters, with complete plot arcs of their own, but it was done gracefully and their interpretation definitely didn't seem invalid. Saint Jimmy was creepy! Whatshername was fierce!
After the show had ended and some of the audience chose to stay behind for a discussion with the actors, I spotted my niece Janet and her boyfriend Eli in the crowd! It was so strange, and very coincidental, as Janet said, for us to have been there on the same night! We got to talk to them for a while -- it was very fun to see them!
What an awesome day!
ps - I sure hope no one plagiarizes from this blog post. I'm glad that I'll have my timestamp on the post (somewhere below) as verification of my original writings.
It was in the Berkeley Rep theater, which I'd never been to before. The set was just epic! A steel stairway, a la fire escape, wound up the back-right corner of the stage to relatively extreme heights. Half of a car and a shopping cart hung suspended over the left-hand side of the stage. And the walls were completely PLASTERED with advertisements, posters, graffiti, you name it... and set into them were 40 or 50 plasma-screen televisions of various shapes and sizes. For most of the show, the stage floor was covered with discarded bits of newspaper, and furnished with a bed and a couch.
The representation of the music was very faithful -- much more so than I expected -- and the music was blaring loud. The singing was usually great, although I felt a little iffy toward the main character Johnny's rendition of American Idiot. I was so impressed by how IN SHAPE all the actors were, because everyone was constantly swirling, stomping, jumping and gesturing... and two of them even had to dance around up in the air, suspended by wires ... I was so impressed by the way everything swept along. The story had been expanded beyond what was technically implied by the album's original lyrics -- there were a few extra characters, with complete plot arcs of their own, but it was done gracefully and their interpretation definitely didn't seem invalid. Saint Jimmy was creepy! Whatshername was fierce!
After the show had ended and some of the audience chose to stay behind for a discussion with the actors, I spotted my niece Janet and her boyfriend Eli in the crowd! It was so strange, and very coincidental, as Janet said, for us to have been there on the same night! We got to talk to them for a while -- it was very fun to see them!
What an awesome day!
ps - I sure hope no one plagiarizes from this blog post. I'm glad that I'll have my timestamp on the post (somewhere below) as verification of my original writings.
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And yes, Christopher the cat does need some serious dieting -- we have many birds for him to chase, but he just isn't that motivated! We shall see....