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Tough guys with a soft side have long held a firm grip on the American imagination. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders, about a cadre of down-and-out boys, has been published in 1967, when the author himself was a teenager, and has since inspired millions of restless young people. It has been read by. His 1983 film, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starred such big-name actors as Rob Lowe and Matt Dillon before they became mainstream, and was a film-making masterpiece that focused seriously on young people and their grievances. It heralded the arrival of the pack era.
The new musical version of “The Outsiders,” now playing at Broadway’s Jacobs Theater, is a story of the insatiable yearning of youth, the triumph of honesty over adversity, and, of course, a cast full of vintage muscle. It takes advantage of the charm of the performance. T-shirt (costume provided by Sarafina Bush). But productions only intermittently rise to the challenge of turning such familiar material into original and necessary theater. It’s full of heart and soul, but it lacks a strong heartbeat.
While “The Outsiders” is not lacking in plot, much of it has been seen elsewhere, especially on stage. Gangs in conflict between the haves and have-nots, a romance that crosses enemy lines, and a hustle and bustle in the second act to settle the score. (Perhaps Hinton, like many high schoolers, read “Romeo and Juliet.”) “The Outsider,” which premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse last spring, was a movie about squishy pizza and It would be more appropriate to describe it as “grease” without the “grease” element. “West Side Story” has no passion or pathos.
That would be underestimating the enormous accomplishments of the creative team, deftly directed by director Danya Taymor, who enhances the film with an alluring aesthetic brilliance. It’s to their credit that “The Outsiders” at least gives its many recycled elements a unique flavor.
The screenplay, co-written by Adam Rapp with Justin Levine, focuses on friendship, the naturalism and emotional development of three orphaned brothers: narrator Ponyboy (Brody Grant) and the rugged romantic Sodapop. , and depicts retro slang more lightly than Coppola. (Jason Schmidt) and his eldest son Darrell (Brent Comer), who has become a father. All three actors are great. A sense of shared, wounded tenderness permeates the domestic scenes glowing under pools of amber light, in stark contrast to the street battles punctured by sudden blackouts. (Brian McDevitt’s lighting is wonderfully expressive.)
The score, by the folk duo Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance) and Levine (who also provided musical direction, orchestration, and arrangements), explores the Oklahoma milieu and the yearning to escape from it. It has a fitting, noxious country sound to it. . Almost the entire first act hammers that desire home, including the song “Great Expectations,” named after the Dickens novel that replaces “Gone with the Wind” as a literary reference in Ponyboy’s pocket. Dedicated to number. (Rapp also makes him the brains of his family.)
After an opening number that accomplishes much of the heavy lifting, including setting the time and place (“Tulsa 1967”) and the main conflict (between the underprivileged “greasers” and the money-making “society” or socialites); A sense of wistful resignation (“Maybe it is what it is, it’s always going on”) becomes the dominant theme. Despite the series of developments, including a fatal stabbing and the rescue of children from a church fire, ennui weighs on the show like a leaden blanket. Despite his life going in an irreversible direction, Ponyboy still feels trapped, which makes sense story-wise but proves difficult to dramatize. .
The raw wood set, dominated by barn-like walls, seems intended to reflect that incarceration (by design collective AMP, featuring Tatiana Kavezian), and for a more notable effect It serves as a calming canvas for the. When Ponyboy is knocked unconscious by an arrogant rival, a high-pitched ringtone draws the audience into his skull (voice by Cody Spencer). And its climactic battle is set in a thunderstorm and choreographed by Rick and Jeff Cooperman like an erotic music video. can also be seen).
Considering that the songwriters turned “Tulsa 1967” into a recurring refrain, and that an infamous massacre decimated the city’s black neighborhoods 50 years earlier, the work wisely plays with social divisions. does not ignore race among people. In this version of the story, mentor and ex-con Dally (Joshua Boone) teaches Johnny (Skye Lakota-Lynch) how to protect himself, but this is fatal, hard-won wisdom. , which leads to a tragic ending. Both actors perform numbers that rank among the highest scores in the final stages.
But even this climactic moment is permeated with a sense of patter. The romance between Ponyboy and Cherry (Emma Pittman) makes for a few serviceable duets, but feels perfunctory and disappears into a mixture of other conflicts. Hinton’s novels run through the powerful first-person voice of a struggling narrator, gripping the reader by the heart. The musical “The Outsiders” takes a milder approach, peeking into the hidden parts of masculinity, in keeping with the indie emo tune and pace.
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