The third in a savvy trifecta of separate but strikingly similar, mostly British musicals, all about empowering creative kids and their unconventional teachers – and, in the words of the pedagogical prophet Dewey Finn, “stickin’ it” to clueless adult authority figures – “School of Rock” derives many lessons from “Billy Elliot” and “Matilda”.
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By contrast, there’s the school where Dewey does his up-yours substitute teaching: the Horace Green school, uptight, and a sure ticket to the Ivy League, any affluent parent’s dream. Having written songs for alley cats and toy trains, Webber has the ideal sensibility to relate to children whose freakish talents might make them seem a little bit … peculiar, in a world of average Joes”You’re In the Band”, the best number in the show, is a spirited audition piece that allows Dewey (and a delighted audience) to discover the awesome depth of talent in his classroom”. If they are most compelling in the upbeat numbers, the also get a Broadway-ish lament, If Only You Would Listen, which returns in a fine reprise. Most of the new songs tend to be just okay at best.
He has previously suggested that less restrictive guidelines about child actors made it “much easier” to cast children in NY.
Dewey fights off the various conservative paper tigers (such as the principal, dryly played by Sierra Boggess), shows the kids they can self-actualize like Montessori-trained Freddie Mercurys and, of course, thus finds new meaning in his own hitherto tawdry life. Under Dewey’s encouragement, the children begin to flower into rock stars. As with so many shows in this genre, “School of Rock” suffers from an overload of brand devotedness: it doesn’t cover much territory that the movie on which it is piggy-backing already did.
The new musical version of “School of Rock” is now in session, and all of the required elements are in attendance – nearly. ‘Hopefully, it’s something that you will go to and say, ‘I had a really good time, ‘ but hopefully, you will also take out of it the central message of the story, which is a very warm and very simple one, which is about the empowering force of music’. Lyricist Glenn Slater is a Disney man from ‘way back. They’re a whip-smart but still needy little crew: One of the diminutive singers, Bobbi Mackenzie, makes you cry all night. We know we’re in trouble when No Vacancy, ostensibly a hard-rocking hair metal act, sounds like emasculated power pop. But things perk up when the younger cast members finally get a chance to sing and play, beginning with the gently rollicking You’re in the Band.
Following the successful preview launch of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest musical, “School of Rock”, November 9 in New York City, the production will open next fall in London’s West End.
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Chris Jones is a Tribune Newspapers critic.
