After watching American Idiot, the Green Day musical, this weekend, I've decided to create another blog entry reviewing what I saw.
Show: Friday, 8.30pm, WMC in Cardiff, 19/10/12
Some plot spoilers will occur here, so I'm just telling you now before you get all angry at me for spoiling it...
Now. As an angsty teenager, American Idiot to me was the album that all the non-Green Day fans bought and then decided they were fans of the band. So I never really took a great interest, but secretly enjoyed singing along to the album's title track if it was played on the radio or dancing along if we were out in a club. But after looking into it, the idea behind the American Idiot album went deeper than Green Day trying to be a more commercial band. Instead, it looked at the "new American dream" and how people went about pursuing it (which is incredibly evident just from listening to the lyrics).
Not being familiar with the entire album probably helped me when I went to watch this show, as I had no idea what a lot of the music would be like or what the ideas behind it were. I expected to be able to rock out - and this expectation was more than met.
The idea is this - three friends (Johnny, Will and Tunny) all live in a non-specified suburban town, and long for something beyond it. When Johnny gets cash to get out and go to the city, he asks Will and Tunny to join him. Will, however, is torn - his girlfriend Heather has just told him she's pregnant. Will stays, and watches his two best friends leave him behind. Johnny and Tunny aren't in the city for long before Tunny sees propaganda for the ultimate glory - joining the US Army. So off he goes, leaving Johnny in the big city all alone. That's when we meet Whatsername (the love interest) and St. Jimmy, an off the rails punk rocker with a pocket full of "pixie dust" and more. The rest of the show follows the three as they make decisions and end up back where they began their story. Johnny often refers to himself as the Jesus of Suburbia (another of Green Day's tracks that features in the show). The show opens to TV theme tunes, adverts and jingles, throwing us right in the centre of commercialism at its best (or possibly worst?).
At a glimpse, the entire cast are American themselves. Alex Nee played a fabulously arrogant yet angst-ridden Johnny, and was supported well by Casey O'Farrell as lazy Will and Thomas Hettrick as Army-bound Tunny. Alyssa Diplama, Jenna Rubaii and Kennedy Caughell all excelled vocally and otherwise as love interests Whatsername, Extraordinary Girl and Heather (Will's baby-momma). The only slight disappointment came in the form of St. Jimmy (Trent Saunders), who we (I say we, my two friends and myself) didn't feel was deranged, unhinged or demented enough to play such a part at times. His first entry should have been like the second coming of Jesus - instead it was more like jazz-hands and smiles (not the impression a drug-dealer would want to give, I'm sure). After hearing that Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has played the role himself, Saunders' interpretation wasn't kooky enough for me. Vocally, however, he was spot on each time. The company all had a chance to shine, with some taking on entire songs (such as Too Much, Too Soon as the act one finale) and having a chance to show off some killer vocals. The choreography was messy and contemporary, which fit perfectly with Green Day's sometimes erratic soundtrack.
Overall the show was different yet enjoyable - it wasn't so far from musical theatre that I felt uncomfortable, but the music itself was fantastic. A particular highlight was a very haunting version of 21 Guns, sang by the females of the cast as the leading men became vulnerable (especially Tunny, who has lost a leg by this point after returning from a war zone), and Letterbomb, which was a high-energy girl empowering number in which Whatsername leaves Johnny.
Personally, I would definitely see this show again, just to keep my inner emo-kid quiet!
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