American Idiot takes the
music from the band Green Day and turns it into a musical. This isn’t the happy go lucky, feel
good kind of musical. It is angry
and sad as 3 young men try to figure out their lives in the midst of suburbia.
To me, they were spoiled brats who have everything, compared to the rest of the
world. Yet they drown themselves
in video games, TV, drugs, and rock and roll. I didn’t have a connection to their plight.
One guy turns more to
love and drugs but then he discovers his girlfriend gets pregnant and he is
resistant to marriage and children.
The second guy joins the military and winds up wounded in the Middle
East. His story was interesting as
he is drugged up in the hospital, he hallucinates making love with the
nurse. The bedding, the guy and
the nurse are elevated by wires so they are floating above the stage, making
love. The 3rd guy
continues his downward spiral with drugs and takes a menial job that he hates.
There is hope at the end
of the show as they finally accept their circumstances and begin their growth
as adults. But to me, the music
was too loud and angry. It isn’t
quite the rock and roll I grew up with and more hard edged. But the audience loved it. The audience was younger and they
seemed to be familiar with the songs.
No comments:
Post a Comment