American Idiot

Greenday’s 2004 Grammy winning album AMERICAN IDIOT, told a story about the choice between self-destruction and redemption through the journeys of three friends. Director Michael Mayer, still in his mode from SPRING AWAKENING, saw a show in this number one album and pulled together a first production in Berkley, California where the members of Greenday originally emerged from the underground Punk Rock scene. Now on Broadway, this rock concert play is headed by SPRING AWAKENING alum John Gallagher, Jr. as “Johnny,” a young man who runs away to the big city in order to stave off boredom and ends up drugged out of his mind before realizing he must go home to become a sturdy human being again. His friend Will (Michael Esper) stays home to have a baby with his girlfriend, but shortly that goes sour and she leaves him to his cans of beer and a dirty couch. Tunny, played by the always wonderful Stark Sands (why is it that Stark Sands is growing visibly younger with every show he appears in?), runs off with Johnny, but an ad for the adventure of the Armed Forces lures him into the Army where he looses a leg fighting in the war. He too returns home, with a new wife and a new mechanical leg, ready for a new day. Enough time goes by so that Will can reunite with his child and we assume, participate in its life. The moral of the story is “East, West, home best.” What this has to say about the current American psyche is not untrue, but neither is it the whole picture. AMERICAN IDIOT says that the teenagers are bored and so they are fleeing from boredom to go through a period of decadence and self-destruction before realizing that excess won’t get them anywhere and sober responsibility will. For all that, this trip to a proverbial Oz focusses on angry sex, profanity, drugs and rock ‘n’ role. The journey of the characters is only scantly traced. There is a stimulating unit set by Christine Jones full of TV sets blasting images that correspond to the story. There is rock concert lighting by Kevin Adams. There is down and dirty choreography for bouncing, stomping, raving teens by Tom Kitt. There is even a beautiful flying sequence where Tunny dreams he can use his shattered leg again. The whole noisy, explosive, eye-popping show runs a slick 90 minutes to final curtain. Somehow it seems that it ought to mean more than it does––it purports to be important, but it is just edgy fun with a few stunning visual images that propel it into a wonderful work of art.