Townshend’s generational howl of anguish opens on Broadway
Pete Townshend’s prescient 1969 rock opera “Tommy,” a horrifying if ultimately transcendent howl of anger and anguish at the damage wrought on the boomer generation by their war-scarred parents, has returned to Broadway in a new, born-in-Chicago production from director Des McAnuff that will sock you right in the gut.
McAnuff, of course, is the guy who first theatricalized this epically expressionistic piece of British vinyl. His flipper fingers still play a mean pinball in a digital era unimaginable in the glory days of The Who. Townshend remains one of the world’s great rock composers and guitarists, even though he wrote his masterpiece while still in his early 20s, back when pop music was all chirpy threeminute singles and far from ready for an ephemeral, multi-song “opera” with themes of abuse. The Beatles had released “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” sure. But the Who had far more stoic rock fans, preferring loud guitar riffs to psychedelic experiments.
Now, though, the world has spun forward enough times to meet “Tommy” where it always lived, meaning its psychologically oriented story of delayed self-actualization due to childhood trauma, and its withering parody of abusive authority figures and celebrity worship. Townshend has said he wrote “Tommy” to give the Who heft, to find himself as an artist, and to help bring self-awareness to a similarly young audience that had not yet understood either its own experience or what it really wanted out of life. McAnuff clearly was not done
in 1993 with this show, the year it first opened on Broadway.
How do you think they did it? The answer to me was obvious at the eyepopping premiere of “The Who’s Tommy” last summer at the Goodman Theatre.
McAnuff has worked on many jukebox musicals over the years, but clearly feels this one as generationally definitional and thus has ranged deeper. Or, in less fancy words, this is the work of latecareer people who now care about a lot more than selling tickets,
If you saw the original “Tommy” in 1993, as did I, you’ll otherwise likely see many similarities in terms of McAnuff’s narrative contribution to the storytelling. But the first “Tommy” came from an analog era; this time around Townshend and McAnuff have digital projections to explore, allowing greater fluidity. Peter Nigrini’s projections are some of the best virtual images I’ve ever seen, from a storytelling perspective. They are sufficiently restrained not to compete with the humans. They evoke 1960s London with utter veracity. And they can pulse when combined with David Korins’ set and Amanda Zieve’s lighting.