Review: "Tommy - The Musical" Theatre On The Hill, Bolingbrook, IL 6/25/10

First, a few items of business:

1. Here's a preview of the next set of reviews:  The Sleeper at Riverfront Playhouse gets a No.  Equus at Redtwist Theatre gets an enthusiastic Yes. And on 7/3, I saw two Baliwick Chicago productions:  Aida and F**king Men.  A big Yes to both.  Now I need to find the time to write the reviews.
2. Again, if you'd like me to let you know about the new reviews when I post them without having to check the blog each day, send an e-mail to wjbreviews@gmail.com and I'll put you on the list.  I have received quite a few requests already, and I'm sure once the previous post gets approved on Craig Gustafson's theatre list, I'll get a few more.  Sometimes it can take up to a week for things to go public on his list.  And there is always NICOTH.
3. As I mentioned in the previous post, I'd like to know your thoughts on how to define local theatre.  I'm assuming it is an area of interest for you, since you read this blog.  I'd like your input.  Actually, I need your input.  We may never come up with a definitive statement, but we can flesh out the concept and give it some boundaries.  What are the differences between community theatre, local theatre and non-equity theatre?  Are there any?  Is local theatre the same as community theatre?  Should they all be viewed and judged through the same lens?  Besides location, what are the differences between the likes of Redtwist and other storefront theatres in Chicago versus the venues in the burbs, like Wheaton Drama, Summer Place, Riverfront?  Where in the mix would you put, let's say, Metropolis Centre in Arlington Heights?  I'm looking for your help.  Is paying actors a factor?  How much?  And does that make it professional? If you paid people, would it still be community theatre?  I have lots of questions, and would love to sit and chit chat sometime with people from all venues of theatre, if only to momentarily quench the thirst of curiosity.  Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

On to the review of Tommy:


What causes me to ask for help in defining local theatre is that I'm not sure how to review Theatre On The Hill's production of The Who's Tommy.  It was not theatre as I define it.  Maybe my definition is too narrow.  What I experienced was an amateur, badly conceived dance recital backed by a tribute band of The Who.  They had too many technical glitches with microphones and under-whelming special effects that did nothing to enhance the show.  They were saying, "See, I have all these cool toys."  It came off as self-indulgent.


I was in high school when the album Tommy was released in 1969.  I saw The Who perform it in concert.  Great show.  They labeled it a "rock opera," but without the staging, it more closely resembled an oratorio.  The story was razor thin, and you'll find a synopsis here.  But who cared?  It was a concept album and helped spawn numerous others like Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick and Passion Play.  The album was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.


They made changes to the story when Peter Townsend of The Who decided to mount it as a stage musical.  You can read about the changes by following this link.  After having been exposed to both, I prefer the original.  Not because I'm old-school.  Rather, I think it's more fun to fill in the story in your own head and paint the pictures using your mind's eye, like you would with a reader's theatre or radio play.  For the stage version,  Townsend added a song that doesn't fit in musically (it sounds too Broadway) and is only there to force some dramatic tension between the father and mother, and the "all is now good" ending tries too hard to give substance and message to the show.  As for this production, it was a mess.


I'll approach this with bullet points:

• This show is made up of adults and kids.  A wide range of ages, though it skews to the young.  I'm just guessing, but I think that if you auditioned for this show, you were cast.  This outdoor venture reminded me more of an annual summer extravaganza or fest for families and friends.  The audience can sit on the grassy knoll and watch little or big Bobby and Susie on stage.  There was lots of whooping and hollering showing support for individual cast members.  While that's something you usually hear during a curtain call, it's a bit disturbing when it's done during the show.  Perhaps the combination of the alcoholic beverages they sell at concessions and the outdoor concert atmosphere added to this feeling of freedom amongst the patrons.
• Because there was no quality control during casting, there were vastly varying degrees of talent.  The choreography catered to the weakest, so whole groups of people were performing mundane dance steps, which consisted of jazz squares and jazz hands.  Here's one of the combinations that became the bread and butter of the show:  side step, side step, clap and spin...now the other way...side step, side step, clap and spin.  No one moved with purpose.  And, if you're going to let these kids be in this show, why not teach them some basic fundamentals of performance?  Like looking as if they enjoy what they are doing.  Try smiling on stage.  And do not focus on what the person next to you is doing...that will eventually lead to "the blind leading the blind" mayhem and all hell breaks lose.  There were a few of those moments.
• The show started 30 minutes late.  I sat there waiting for them to work out a technical issue with projections, video cameras and RF signals.  And in the end, the wait was for naught, since the projections added nothing to the show because of poor execution.  When Tommy is looking at an image of his younger or older self in the mirror (represented by the digital image), the camera was aimed too low.  I'm not sure what younger or older Tommy looked like, but I could ID his shoes in a police line-up.
• Racing quickly to the top of my list of pet peeves - using "It's opening night" as an excuse for poor execution.  Look people, get it out of your heads that opening night is an extra final dress rehearsal.  You now have PAYING patrons here to see the show.  They should get the same level of show as the people who come to the final show. "Opening night" is now being used as a shield to hide behind if something goes wrong.  These are issues that should have been cleared up in rehearsals and previews.  It's an unprofessional attitude and just adds to the mindset that "community theatre" is a lesser form of theatre.  I have also heard that the second show will suffer from "sophomore slump" and will lack the edge of opening night.  Again, that's crap and you know it.  The audience doesn't care if you're tired, hungover, depressed over the death of your pet snail or just don't feel jazzed by the energy you had on opening night.  Your responsibility is to give a great show every time.  And, I've heard that I should wait until the second weekend to review the show, since it will be much better.  Why is that?  If you're really that insecure with your show, how is that going to translate to the paying audience?  If you need an extra week of rehearsal, load it onto the front end of the process, not the end.  It's like cheating the public the first week.  When you open a show, you should be as ready to do it as when you close the show.  I had two people who know me and my blog come up to me and say they wished I hadn't come on opening night of The Who's Tommy because this is always what happens on their opening nights.  I asked if I should ask for a refund because I was going to watch their tech rehearsal.  Not much was said after that.
• The microphone cut in and out constantly.  Again, these are the things that should have been worked out in tech rehearsal.  So, for many of the songs, I could not hear the featured vocalist.  When I did hear them, they were tinny and distorted.  Once they got past the technical stuff, it became apparent that this was not a strong group of vocalists and they had a hard time selling the songs.  Perhaps the technical difficulties were a blessing in disguise.  These were mainly the adults.  I'm not going to name names.  There's no point, and I don't have that much bandwidth.  Further down, I will tell you about those who shone through the fog of this calamity.
• Because this is a family fest show, it's been sanitized.  I dislike censorship of any form, and if they felt they needed to hygienize the show, they should have picked another show.  Here's a change Theatre On The Hill made:  Uncle Ernie, in the all versions of the show, is a pedophile. There is a song sung by the parents wondering if they should leave little Tommy with Ernie.  They decide to err on the side of ignorance so they can have a night out.  And then we get Ernie's song, "Fiddle About."  It's about the uncle sexually molesting the child.  The lyrics, "Down with the bed clothes / up with the night shirt / fiddle about, fiddle about, fiddle about.  You won't shout as I fiddle about..."  The ending of the song becomes a repetitive masturbatory chant and ends with a small crescendo.  You get the idea.  It's a creepy little song that adds to understanding the depth of the family's dysfunction, and helps one to feel more empathy for helpless Tommy.  But in the sanitized for your protection version, Uncle Ernie starts doing a jig like a maniacal leprechaun while pretending his cane is a fiddle, while a nurse or someone helps Tommy change clothes and go to bed.  It was just plain stupid if you know the show.  Another change was with the song "Acid Queen."  The character is supposed to be a prostitute who uses sex and drugs to draw young Tommy out of his catatonic state.  In the sanitized version, she's a gypsy, and references to sex and drugs are hidden.  When you see the ages of these kids in the ensemble, it's understandable, I guess.  But then they reference these same kids in the program as playing the roles of Harlots, Thugs and Drunks. It was a "wuh?" moment for me.
• The band was good.  They did a pretty nice job with the music.  Something about "Pinball Wizard" seemed off.  When I was waiting to hear the powerful electric guitar while the acoustic guitar was setting the rhythm all I heard was a weak sounding synthesizer.  It actually sounded tentative, if that's possible.  Maybe it was an issue with the sound board.  You'd think that after an extra 30-minute sound check, that song should have rocked.
• Uncle Ernie - He's supposed to be an unsavory child molester.  Instead, he looked like the love child of Burl Ive's snowman in the Rankin/Bass Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer and Bob's Big Boy.  Maybe a little Charlie Chaplin DNA mixed in.  They clean up the pedophilia references and make him a lovable little roly-poly drunk.  The character choice and portrayal was ridiculous.
• Here are some people that should be noted for their good performances:  Shane and Brynn Frantz as Tommy (age 4) and Tommy (age 10); Marcus Gentry and Mercy Pattawi as Hawker and The Gypsy.  These two have great voices.  And Christine Martin, who was in most of the dance numbers, and invested herself into the characters she was portraying.  She played the moments and enjoyed it and showed it.  That was missing from many of the faces on stage.
• After the song "Finale" was over, the band kept playing.  Curtain call, maybe?  Nope...they just kept playing, and cast members came on stage and they started performing songs from the album Quadrophenia by The Who, which was released in 1973.  They did five songs, by my count.  Another "wuh?"

So, you can see, it was not really theatre.  It was a concert and a dance recital.  And the kids danced, and the parents and supporters sat on the grassy knoll, drank beer and enjoyed.  And if that's what you're looking for, you can find more information on Theatre On The Hill's website.

Run time:  1 hour 50 minutes


Paid:  $15

Was it worth the price of admission?  No, not for me.  I wanted theatre, not a concert.