I was up in Portland Maine this past weekend for a family event, and unbeknownst to us one of our cousins had purchased some tickets to the non-equity tour of Rock of Ages. I had seen the show when it transferred from off Broadway to Broadway and remembered it being fun so I decided to go along. This is definitely a non-equity production. It has a completely different concept than the original, in this version the show is set up like a rock tour so everything comes out of road boxes and road cases, very Brechtian. The concept is interesting for about the first 20 minutes of the show and then it gets really really old. The director or set designer, have put the band smack dab center stage so it swallows up a huge playing area. I suppose that might make sense for a rock musical but it was very distracting. They’ve also done this very confusing thing, like in a Shakespeare play, when everyone plays multiple characters and quite often it’s confusing as to who they are supposed to be. Again, I suppose I’m overthinking it for a rock musical. The audience loved it, they ate it up, especially all of the crude jokes. I spent the majority of the evening trying to figure out if the actor playing Lonnie was directed to play it effeminately or if that was just the actor. Not that it’s wrong to be effeminate but in this case it was distracting. If they were going for some sort of David Bowie glam rock thing they missed the mark. The other performers are all over the place, some are strong and some show the fact that they have very little experience. The sound design was so awful I couldn’t really understand what anyone was saying but again, it may not matter because this is a rock musical.
two ladies tickets said: "The director or set designer, have put the band smack dab center stage so it swallows up a huge playing area. I suppose that might make sense for a rock musical but it was very distracting."
Wasn't the band always set back in the center of the stage, even on Broadway, or am I misremembering?
joined:5/21/10
joined:
5/21/10
Posted: 10/23/18 at 5:38pm