Advertisement

A Hard-Working ‘Tommy’ Misses Some of Original’s Fire

Share
TIMES STAFF WRITER

A few years back, Pete Townshend revisited “Tommy,” his double-album rock opera about a pinball-playing prodigy, and, with the assistance of theater director Des McAnuff, turned it into a buzzing, flashing pinball game of a musical.

The show blunted some of the story’s thornier issues and even seemed to embrace traditional values, which came as a shock to the generation that once rebelled by cranking up the volume on the Who’s psychedelic 1969 recording. Still, it was a solid and, above all, lively piece of theater--qualities it retains as it now segues from McAnuff’s 1992 La Jolla Playhouse and 1993 Broadway stagings to warmed-over remountings on the civic light opera circuit.

The first of these to emerge locally is a hard-working if not wholly successful effort by the Theater League production group, which opened over the weekend in Long Beach and moves tonight to Thousand Oaks for a week’s run. Director Glenn Casale delivers a virtual by-the-numbers re-creation of McAnuff’s work, although, with many of the original’s key scenic elements missing, this often-baffling presentation doesn’t catch fire until the second half.

Advertisement

True, this story has always been hard to follow on its journey into the altered awareness of a child who has shut down his hearing, speech and sight--his way of tuning out the abusive world around him. The rethought version irons out some of the plot and ends on an especially positive note, as Tommy emerges with a heightened sense of inner strength, while embracing and, seemingly, forgiving the family that hurt him.

Sorely missed from McAnuff’s staging is the headlong rush of music-video-style visuals (big-screen projections and live-feed video), which helped to clarify time and place, as well as the goings-on in Tommy’s mind.

Still, Casale delivers a fluid, faced-paced show, which is driven along still more urgently by a hard-rocking pit band under Lloyd Cooper’s supervision and mind-altering, rock-concert-style lighting by Kim Killingsworth.

As the oldest of three Tommys commingling in time and space, Eric Kunze musters a respectable rock falsetto (his “I’m Free” is especially groovy), though he has trouble sustaining it throughout the show. Looking and sounding like Tina Turner in the Ken Russell movie, Carla Williams wails the heck out of “Acid Queen.” And as Tommy’s parents, Ray Benson and Tammy Amerson twine their pure, high voices with exceptional beauty on “I Believe My Own Eyes,” the new song that Townshend wrote for Broadway.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

* “The Who’s Tommy,” Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd. Today-Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Sunday. $29.50-$38.50. (805) 583-8700 or (213) 480-3232. Running time: 2 hours.

Eric Kunze: adult Tommy

Tammy Amerson: Mrs. Walker

Ray Benson: Capt. Walker

Eddie Driscoll: Uncle Ernie

Carla Williams: Acid Queen

A Theater League production. Music and lyrics by Pete Townshend; additional music and lyrics by John Entwistle and Keith Moon. Book by Townshend and Des McAnuff. Directed by Glenn Casale. Musical director Lloyd Cooper. Choreography Mark Esposito. Lights Kim Killingsworth. Sound Mark Cowburn. Stage manager Robert R. Read.

Advertisement
Advertisement