Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – ROCKTOPIA is a rock-meets-classical music collision that counts on your endorphins being released

• By drediman
• April 2, 2018
• No Comments

The company of “Rocktopia” at the Broadway Theatre.

Last night at the appropriately blandly-named Broadway Theatre, I caught Rocktopia, a tourist-friendly concert that mashes up rock with classical music. Although the production is advertised as an opportunity to hear the likes of Mozart combined with legendary bands like The Who, it’s opera and classical music (and even more artistically challenging rock outfits) that generally get the short end of the stick. So let’s just call a spade a spade. At the end of the day, Rocktopia is an excuse to once again play those indestructible rock anthems the masses go mad for and can’t get enough of, à la Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” (I think you get the picture).

That’s not to say that I wasn’t entertained by the plotless Rocktopia. I was. Most of the numbers, performed by an onslaught of onstage musicians (complete with rock band, full orchestra, and a large chorus), were delivered with amusing histrionic élan. There were even some segments that I thought were genuinely thrilling, like the joining of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; the show could have used more similarly well-integrated and inspired moments.  Of the principal performers, I found each to be solid and accomplished vocalists in their respective fields of music-making (I thought Broadway performer and recording artist Tony Vincent came off particularly well).

I just wish that some pretense of a plot would have emerged (something akin to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure would have been fun), especially for the sake of first time theatergoers. But let’s not turn Rocktopia into what it isn’t. It knows exactly the kind of simplistic, endorphins-releasing show it is, and it’s shameless about it. Indeed, to that end, Rocktopia is a masterpiece compared to that other head-scratching concert that invaded Broadway earlier this season, the inane Christmas show Home for the Holidays that limped on and off the boards of August Wilson Theatre for the holidays. Just don’t expect any semblance of theater.

SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED

ROCKTOPIA
Broadway, Musical
Broadway Theatre
2 hours, 15 minutes (with one intermission)
Through April 29