Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The Who’s TOMMY returns to the Great White Way in a sleek, punchy production, and it’s electrifying

• By drediman
• April 11, 2024
• No Comments

This spring, the Broadway revival of the stage version of The Who’s Tommy — arguably one of the landmark musical productions of the 1990s — arrived at the Nederlander Theatre. The current revival comes to New York by way of Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, where the production proved to be a huge sold out hit. For those unfamiliar with the iconic rock opera (which The Who originally released as a concept album in 1969), it tells the story of a boy — the titular Tommy — whose childhood trauma induces a state of deafness, dumbness, and blindness. After a number of abuses, he eventually finds himself drawing a fanbase for his extraordinary pinball playing skills. When he’s shocked back to the world of the living, Tommy continues his journey self-understanding and healing.

To be sure, the grandiose storytelling is murky at best, but that’s part of Tommy’s tone poem allure. Returning to helm the production for another go is the musical’s original director Des McAnuff, who morphs his 1993 production from its bright pinball machine aesthetic to something sleeker and punchier, replacing overt sentimentality with something harder edged (as manifested by the revival’s muted color scheme). Granted, much of the blocking is actually quite similar as before, but everything around it has undergone a transformation. Much of the excitement is generated by the production’s marvelous visual kineticism — from the Lorin Latarro’s consistently thrilling choreography to Peter Nigrini’s immersive video projection work (interestingly, the original production pioneered the use of projections in live theater). Indeed, the show is in constant motion from beginning to end. Most daringly, McAnuff has made some “out there” conceptual choices in the second act, pushing the rock opera further into metaphysical realms.

Central to the show is Pete Townsend’s immortal rock score, which sounds simply majestic at the relatively intimate Nederlander. It’s the stuff that fuels this rocket ship of a production from the past to the present to the future and beyond. As “adult” Tommy, Ali Louis Bourzgui reprises his robustly sung performance from the Goodman, and his work has only gotten deeper and more arresting; he’s absolutely electrifying both as the show’s overarching narrative voice, as well as its messianic center. As his parents, Adam Jacobs and Alison Luff sound absolutely terrific, even if their dramatic portrayals are a tad bland (to be fair, they’re not given much to work with). Performers in more of the “character” roles fare better — particularly the incisively acted and superbly sung turns by Christina Sajous as the Acid Queen, Bobby Conte as Cousin Kevin, and John Ambrosino as Uncle Ernie.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

THE WHO’S TOMMY
Broadway, Musical
Nederlander Theatre
2 hours, 5 minutes (with one intermission)
Open run