TOMMY music and lyrics by Pete Townshend, book by Townshend and Des McAnuff (Stratford). At Avon Theatre, Stratford. Runs in rep to October 19. $52-$175. 1-800-567-1600. See listings. Rating: NNN
Though rock genius Pete Townshend participated fully in the stage adaptation of his masterpiece Tommy, you can tell it wasn’t originally conceived as a mainstream theatre piece.
For one thing, some of the songs – most notably Tommy and Extra – are but snippets. And it has a wonky narrative arc as stage works go.
The first two-thirds track the relentless abuse of the eponymous boy, who’s been unable to speak, see or hear since he was traumatized at age four. (How many pop icons were writing about that kind of thing in 1969?) Tommy doesn’t connect at all with the world until he becomes a pinball wizard.
Everything after that – Tommy’s cure, his vault to superstardom and subsequent rejection of fame, his reconnection to his family – is a mess, mainly because it all happens way too quickly.
Director Des McAnuff has so much happening onstage, however, that you almost don’t notice that the story crashes and burns. The show is gorgeous, thanks to David C. Woolard’s costumes and Sean Nieuwenhuis’s spectacular projections, even if the set itself, by John Arnone, is pedestrian.
And the cast is excellent. The most difficult roles, emotionally and musically, belong to Tommy’s parents, and Kira Guloien and Jeremy Kushnier handle them with the right amount of desperation and regret.
For reasons I can’t grasp – nobody’s bringing small kids to this show – McAnuff stages the sexual abuse scene so coyly that you can’t tell what’s happening, but Steve Ross plays wicked Uncle Ernie with great range, going from creepy to repentant.
And, well, Paul Nolan, whom I last saw as Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar, can obviously do anything, performing a brilliant about-face as the bully Cousin Kevin.
The weak link is Robert Markus as the grown-up Tommy. He can’t convey the vacancy of the sense-deprived lad and lacks the charisma to convince us he could mesmerize audiences as a pop culture hero.
But the refrain “See me, feel me, touch me, heal me” does bring a tear to the eyes.
Bonus: it was wild watching an audience of bopping 70-year-olds at a matinee.
