Is AMERICAN IDIOT theatre?

...Great!

...it really sucks when people get incoherent about/shill for shows that are actually good...

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In response to the poster: if I crap out food, is it still the food i ate 5 hours ago? of course its theatre.

"...Great!

...it really sucks when people get incoherent about/shill for shows that are actually good..."


THIS. So this. It's SO frustrating when stupid people try to champion things I love.

But yes, I urge people to not comment after this. Let this thread disappear into the darkness...

I have not seen this show yet but do plan on it soon. My definition of theater is watching a live performance that tells a story. If this show does that, then I consider it to be a theatrical experience. It may not be conventional or to everyone's liking but it is theater nonetheless.

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of course it's theater.

I agree with the reader above about Sondheim. AI has more plot than Cats, Spelling Bee, Chorus Line and many others. I think some people just don't like this type of narrative. I understand why some might not. But it feels pretty powerful to me.

"It wouldn't have been much different if GreenDay would have just gotten up and sang. I didn't really care about any of those characters at all, anyway."

This is exactly how I feel about the show.

It feels like the OP is, like so many other people do, letting opinions on the show ruin his experience. Why does it bother people so much that others didn't enjoy themselves? As long as you enjoyed it, why should you care?

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So, over the course of American Idiot, the following occurs (SPOILERS):
-A group of friends move to the city
-One's girlfriend gets pregnant and he stays home to raise it
-One character gets addicted to drugs with the help of a seedy pusher
-Another enlists in the army and falls in love with his nurse when he is injured in battle
-He has his leg amputated
-The father and his girlfriend grow apart and she leaves, taking the baby with her
-The drug addict gets strung out and threatens his girlfriend and himself with a knife
-She tries to help him but he breaks up with her
-The pusher is revealed to be a figment of his imagination

And over the course of Hair, this is what happens:
-Berger tears a shirt.

Now, I have no problem with Hair. But people seem to have this determination to take down American Idiot. Of course it's THEATRE. You sit down in a Broadway house and watch a story told through acting and music. This story does not have dialogue and isn't nuanced, but if it was, it would betray the very spirit of the show and of a ROCK OPERA.

And since when does every show need to have a clearly delineated message? The cast of Hair basically marches around for two and a half hours talking about free love and whatnot. Does that constitute a message to you?

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"Where HAIR and American Idiot part ways is in the end you KNOW what HAIR's message is, it has a very simple but straight forward storyline and you actually care for the characters by the end of the show.. In American Idiot you just go "Huh?" and "i should care, why?". I wasn't quite sure the message American Idiot was trying to get across. "


A show not having an easy to digest "message" is not a negative, just as it having one is not a positive.

And really? What is HAIR's "message"?



I found a similar amount of resonance at the end of AI as i did at the end of HAIR. *vague spoilers*

These three characters have all taken vastly different journeys, but at the end of the day, didn't achieve that much, and have become the very "American Idiots" they rail against at the beginning of the show. A huge amount of youth in their mid-twenties (and older) throughout the country fall into where these characters are at the end of the show (and during it), and most of them just settle into their complacency and go on with their lives. I think the core of AI gets at the disaffected nature of huge segments of that particular generation, and I was quietly knocked out at the end of the show.



And for the record, I wouldn't have felt NEARLY as impacted had Green Day just performed the songs on stage. A huge part of what I loved about AI was the exciting, energetic, visceral, 'wow' nature of the production, which I thought worked perfectly in tandem with the music and performances (and the way the songs were used were uber-creative, in my opinion).

But whatever. Even if I had hated the show, it would still be "theatre," and this thread would still be stupid.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate American Idiot, I just don't like it much. There are moments of brilliant theatre onstage, the bus trip comes to mind. I have a problem with the in your face directing style. I didn't care for Spring Awakening for the very same reason...( what is with the rising platform for all the sex scenes anyway?) Perhaps to the volume of the piece and not being familiar with the Green Day Album the lyrics were all but lost in the mix. When the show wasn't constantly in your face the quieter "emotional" numbers boarder lined hokey....I had a bit of a problem with the lighting,the video and what was happening onstage fighting for attention, though I did like the live video camera work.
No, every show doesn't need a message but I felt AI was trying to put one across and I just wasn't sure what that was. If it was, the World today sucks and we all end up back home, fine,then cut the very last song which seemed tacked on anyway.
Ultimately, I think it will do very well. For how long, who knows? I just know it is not a show I will revisit.

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Snafu, I felt like it captured a snapshot of a certain segment of youth wasting their youth attempting to be rebellious and finding that they cannot escape what has been set out for them. I especially liked the somber and quiet end. In contrast to the raucous opening. No more fire in them. I thought it was a nifty progression. I am not sure it is an actual "message" any more than HAIR had one.

Claude's conflict is just as "sketchy." We don't really get any emotional involvement until the last 15-20 minutes, and even then, there's still not much in the way of character development. I'm not saying this as a weakness -- HAIR is a great show -- but only as an example of how there's more to what makes a show than whether you got an easy-to-process, preachy "anti-war" message, or if you felt the characters had a completely fleshed-out arc.

I'm as anti-war as the next gay liberal, but I don't think a show coming out against the Vietnam war makes it more resonant or emotionally affecting than a show that strives to give a voice to -- or at least, depict -- scores of passive, disaffected Americans. The message isn't "life sucks" -- but again, and I'll repeat myself as many times as I have to, PREACHING A SIMPLE, STRAIGHTFORWARD MESSAGE ISN'T NECESSARILY A VIRTUE.