American Idiot
3 / 10
Director Michael Mayer has dressed the story and score up with a relentless staging that owes its inspiration to many sources, from the musicals Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair, and Rent to Twyla Tharp's Movin' Out and Des McAnuff's Tommy. Steven Hoggett's choreography feels mostly indebted to Michael Jackson music videos, as indeed does the entire short-attention-span ambience of the entire piece. I was hoping to experience something new in this new-generation rock opera, but American Idiot is instead a long string of cliches. There's diverting stuff to watch, and the music is almost always pretty good, but it's ultimately derivative, boring theatre.
