Green Day's American Idiot, at Home on Broadway
http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/musical-theater/american-idiot-at-home-on-broadway/832/
Green Day’s American Idiot absolutely belongs on Broadway. The punk label always seemed somewhat disingenuous for this band, now 23 years old, that is cleaner, shinier, and more sentimental than punk would ever want to be. And Green Day’s songs, with Billie Joe Armstrong’s lyrics, have unnervingly infectious hooks, harmonies, and major chords to match the best of recent Broadway scores. It doesn’t hurt that a good number of songs in the show are very familiar already. And the cast can first and foremost belt the songs loud and clear, with none of the dreaded distortion of the Broadway vibrato.
But the major supporting element is the set, by Christine Jones. The St. James Theatre has a very high proscenium. The walls, which define a pretty shallow stage area and climb upward ad infinitum, are covered with newspapers and propaganda, and pale enough to receive projections and lighting effects. About 40 TV screens of various sizes punch through the wall or hang; they not only display video (live and recorded), they occasionally become lighting fixtures as well. The sum effect of the set is a never-ending vertical chute, the bottom of which collects the angsty teen detritus of society. Every time they climb up the clever “ready-made” rolling ladder and staircase, they tumble right back down—onto the floor, a mattress, or the hospital gurneys that wait to catch them once more. Panels open to become windows and doors, revealing a world beyond to escape to, but they always slam shut like a trap.
