‘Rise’ isn’t above an excess of cliches
Critics complain more about cliches than the viewing public, and there’s a reason for that beyond the obvious one that a critic’s job is occasionally to complain. Critics don’t like cliches because they believe the scriptwriter has borrowed an old idea rather than thinking up something on his or her own. The public doesn’t complain about cliches because they are familiar: No matter what else may be happening in a film or TV show, cliches offer a kind of grounding. They can be a comfort to viewers.
“Rise,” a 10-episode melodrama premiering on NBC on Tuesday, March 13, is set in a Pennsylvania high school where English teacher Lou Mazzuchelli (Josh Radnor) makes a bid to take over the drama department, which is getting ready for yet another production of “Grease.” Lou has another idea: “Spring Awakening,” the hit musical based on the German novel and play by Frank Wedekind. With music by Duncan Sheik and book by Steven Sater, the musical’s subject matter includes abortion, teenage suicide and homosexuality.
Working with outspoken assistant department head Tracy (Rosie Perez), Lou gets his teenage cast to mine their own adolescent issues and insecurities to add realism to the characters they are portraying onstage.
Creators Jason Katims
(“Parenthood”) and Jeffrey Seller (“Rent,” “Hamilton”), basing the show on the nonfiction book “Drama High” by Michael Sokolove, use a relatively sophisticated conceit, mirroring the themes explored in “Spring Awakening” — the danger of social repression — in the lives of parents, school officials and, of course, the kids.
Once that decision was made, the cliches piled up like firewood. Lilette Suarez (Auli’i Cravalho) has to fend for herself much of the time because her single mom, Vanessa (Shirley Rumierk), is too busy falling for married guys, like Coach Doug Strickland (Joe Tippett), whose daughter Gwen (Amy Forsyth) is crushed by her father’s infidelity. She’s also in the play. So is Lilette, playing one of the leading roles.
Robbie Thorne (Damon J. Gillespie) is the star quarterback on the school football team, but after he gets a taste of performing, he’s torn between drama club and the gridiron. Predictably, Strickland and Mazzuchelli have one of those ongoing classic battles about whether sports or the arts are more important in a teenager’s development.
Sasha (Erin Kommer) discovers she is pregnant, but has no support system in her immediate family. Instead, she has her longtime best friend, Michael (Ellie Desautels), who is transitioning to a male.
Simon Saunders (Ted Sutherland) has always sung the lead parts in school musicals, and not only because he’s always the only boy who tries out. This time, though, Lou gives the lead role of Melchior to Robbie and casts Simon as Hänschen, which will require him to kiss another boy. Simon is afraid of what his religiously and politically conservative family will say to that. Is that the real reason Simon is afraid of pretending to be close to Jeremy (Sean Grandillo) or could there be a deeper reason? What do you think?
At first the school principal and the school board are outraged by the plan to mount “Spring Awakening.” Soon it becomes an issue among parents and the community.
It would be too easy to link “Rise” to “Glee” and, before that, the Disney “High School Musical” franchise. You can go back to “Babes in Arms” and beyond to find the basics to “Hey, kids, let’s put on a show” to trace the template for “Rise” and other projects like it. There are always challenges and obstacles, usually posed by the unyielding adult world where imagination and creativity cannot survive. But sometimes, one enlightened adult works his magic on the kids and the defiant establishment. And before you know it, a bunch of boys are standing on their desks and reciting “O Captain! My Captain!” or “High School Musical” gets produced, or the school glee club makes regionals.
The writers rely too heavily on the cliches to develop characters, which leaves many of them underdeveloped or inconsistent. Radnor is such a good actor that it takes a while for us to realize his contradictory actions don’t really line up with what we think we know about Lou.
The younger cast members carry the heaviest burdens, as they have to distinguish between the kids they are supposed to be at the Harry S. Truman High School, and find common concerns in the characters they portray in “Spring Awakening.” They are each discovering keys to who they really are and what they will become as adults through the characters they are pretending to be. At least “Spring Awakening” offers more credible chances for the enlightenment of its teenage cast than “Grease” does. David Wiegand is an assistant managing editor and the TV critic of The San Francisco Chronicle. Follow him on Facebook. Email: dwiegand@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @WaitWhat_TV