Review: AMERICAN IDIOT at Mark Taper Forum

As the song says, September has ended, meaning – the occasional lingering triple digit temps aside – summer really has come and passed, and the time for Center Theatre Group’s flagship space to wake up.

That’s one nitro blast of an alarm clock that has drawn the curtain anew on the next phase of the Mark Taper Forum courtesy of new CTG Artistic Director Snehal Desai, old friends Deaf West Theatre and the tunes of a little band known as Green Day. With a packed Taper house, a stage full of hot young singer/dancers performing, signing and middle fingering their hopes and disillusionments into an iconic rock score; yeah life doesn’t suck too much. Neither does this production, although ironically, here’s wishing that that the experience could have been even more roof-raising.

All these very strong and $#@! cool elements make up the whole that is this new revival of GREEN DAY’S AMERICAN IDIOT, produced by CTG in collaboration with Deaf West Theatre in its world premiere at the Taper. CTG and Deaf West have worked together, with great success, before sometimes with the larger company providing a performance venue to an existing production (a la BIG RIVER), other times building the production together (PIPPIN, SLEEPING BEAUTY WAKES). BIG RIVER went to Broadway, as did Deaf West’s 2015 revival of SPRING AWAKENING, notably not a CTG co-pro.

If you’ve been fortunate to see any of these aforementioned previous Deaf West musicals, you’ve witnessed an art form in evolution. The blending of Deaf and hearing performers is crafted with insight and creativity by people directors like Jeff Calhoun and Michael Arden. Desai’s approach to IDIOT, as rockin’ and angry as anything the company has put on stage, is certainly an adrenaline jolt. With fantastic dance guided by choreographer Jennifer Weber and ASL choreographers Colin Analco and Amelia Hensley, the 95 sung through minutes of this rock album-turned-play are consistently riveting. And chances are, you have never seen subtitles rendered as dazzlingly as what projection designer David Murakami is doing on the Taper stage. Don’t know all the words to the songs on Green Day’s 2004 album? Wait till you check out the way Murakami presents them.

Desai’s company of 20 feels larger than it is. The play’s three central characters, Johnny, Will and Tunny each have a voice double, armed with a guitar. Same with the Extraordinary Girl. The actors playing Johnny’s destructive muse Whatsername and his pusher alter ego St Jimmy, Will’s wife Heather and Heather’s new flame Favorite Son either largely do their own signing or this duty is taken on by a member of the ensemble. Given the consistency of the action, the thrum of the music performed by Music Director David O’s live band, there are times that the hearing and Deaf performers seem to fuse into a single undistinguishable ensemble. Which, in one respect, is a feat in itself.

But what if it hadn’t? What if IDIOT is seamlessly deconstructed for entertainment value. What it lacks is magic.

In Desai’s staging, there has been little effort at reconsidering this story and giving this AMERICAN IDIOT anything relevant to say to (or about) a Deaf audience. The feelings of disaffection, malaise, anger or jubilation experienced by Johnny, Will and Tunny seem to be universal feelings and have nothing to do with any of these dudes being, say, outsiders. Well and good. That’s how co-writers Billie Joe Armstong and Michael Mayer wrote these characters in the first place. The play’s inspiration was, of course, the themes of Green Day’s 2004 album which, two decades later feels as poignant and immediate as it did during its angry heyday.

From practically the moment it dropped, AMERICAN IDIOT was a significant kick-ass piece of music and of pop culture. The stage incarnation, by very sharp contrast and in true jukebox musical fashion, is far less. Mayer and Armstrong have surrounded these songs with a wispy thread of a narrative – three dudes from suburbia embark (or in the case of Will, stay home) on a quest to find some meaning; they experience some blows and end up sadder, wiser and reunited back where they started. Now, when you can get a bunch of people to sing the skin off “21 Guns,” “Too Much Too Soon” or “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” (none of which are actually on the AMERICAN IDIOT album, by the by), story rot may not matter as much.

But it should. When the CTG/Deaf West IDIOT was announced, I was so hoping that Desai and his team – particularly the ASL choreographers - would find a new and exciting path into Armstrong and Mayer’s script, something that would crack open these songs and these characters in challenging new ways. Doesn’t happen. Daniel Durant is a strong actor whose bitterness self-hatred, and longing all come through at various points of Johnny’s journey. Milo Manheim puts these feelings elegantly to song. Mason Alexander Park’s St Jimmy may be a narcotic made human, the evilest of evil angels, but they’re a compelling one. From named characters to ensemble, these performers are plenty skilled and can certainly tap into the spirit of the music, but they can’t make us care.

Of course, the hollow core of AMERICAN IDIOT was present in 2009 When Mayer and Armstrong opened the show in Berkeley, and when the musical moved to Broadway in 2010. So it goes. Green Day fans and rock musical fans should love this latest spin while Angelinos can justifiably celebrate the reopening of the Taper. Creatively speaking, this is not the time of your life.”

AMERICAN IDIOT plays through Nov. 17 at 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.  

Photo of Daniel Durant and Mars Storm Rucker by Jeff Lorch

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