Wow, it HAS been around for a while...NY Times review is from 2009 ( I was tempted to use current Yelp reviews--they are pretty glowing ones--, but that would leave you in the dark too much about substance of show)
Theater Review | 'Rock of Ages'
Big-Hair Rockers Return in a New Arena: Broadway
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
Published: April 7, 2009
When it comes to hair — long beautiful hair
or gleaming streaming hair or flaxen waxen hair — I am afraid that sweet
nostalgia trip about flower children and free love has already become
an also-ran on Broadway.
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Constantine Maroulis, left, and Amy Spanger in a scene from the ’80s-rock musical, “Rock of Ages.” More Photos »
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Related
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Songs to Mock and to Love (April 5, 2009)
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Theater Review | 'Rock of Ages': Never Mind the Mullet; It’s the Tunes (October 27, 2008)
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Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
James Carpinello plays the rocker Stacee Jaxx and Amy Spanger an aspiring actress. More Photos »
You want hair? Big hair? Hair you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley?
The champ is unquestionably “Rock of Ages,” a
seriously silly, absurdly enjoyable arena-rock musical that thrashed
open at the Brooks Atkinson Theater on Tuesday night in front of a
bobbing sea of cigarette lighters waved aloft. The frothing piles of
pleated, teased, bleached, dyed and fried tresses being tossed around in
this new show about the good old days — in this case the 1980s on the
Sunset Strip in Los Angeles — make “Hair” look tame indeed, virtually
Rogaine-ready, the Yul Brynner of musicals.
Fortunately, and I must say surprisingly,
the attractions of this latest in the ceaseless parade of jukebox
musicals on Broadway extend well beyond the extensions. Written with
winky wit by Chris D’Arienzo, directed with zest by Kristin Hanggi, sung
with scorching heat by a spirited cast, and featuring a towering stack
of heavy-rotation favorites from the glory years of MTV — hits from
Journey and Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar and Poison, Whitesnake and Twisted
Sister — this karaoke comedy about warped-vinyl dreams is about as
guilty as pleasures get. Call it “Xanadu” for straight people — and
straight-friendly people too.
The volcanic locks and endless guitar solos
are tethered to a thin plot concocted from showbiz clichés spruced up in
skin-hugging leather and acid-washed denim. But so what if the story is
stale as the air in a dive bar at 6 a.m.? Mr. D’Arienzo, Ms. Hanggi and
their ace designers (costumes by Gregory Gale, hair and wigs by Tom
Watson and sets by Beowulf Boritt) mockingly evoke the sights, sounds
and smells of the era with an affection so pure and an aesthetic so
archly on-target that the familiar is freshened by a festive parade of
gumdrop-colored lingerie and pungent grunge. When somebody pulls out a
four-pack of Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers, the audience roars as if
at a punch line of supreme perceptiveness.
Drew (Constantine Maroulis) is a shy kid
from Michigan who sweeps the floors at the Bourbon Room, a legendary
club on the Strip, while he waits for his dream of guitar-god stardom to
materialize. Rocking his world one day is Sherrie (Amy Spanger), an
aspiring actress from small-town Kansas also hoping to make it big in
Hollywood. When her classic Farrah Fawcett meets his mid-period Steven
Tyler, it’s love at first stroke of the brush.
Dating at least back to “Babes in Arms” is
the subsidiary plot about a greedy German real estate developer (Paul
Schoeffler) and his effete son (Wesley Taylor) who want to raze the
Bourbon Room — and the rest of the Strip — to rebuild it along more
profitable lines. Under threat of eviction, the club’s proprietor,
Dennis (Adam Dannheisser), an old pothead and rock dog, hatches a plan
to rescue the club by hosting the farewell concert from the mega-band
Arsenal, which got its start there. On the momentous night Drew gets his
big break as the opening act but also has his heart nearly broken when
Stacee Jaxx (James Carpinello), the bleach-brained singer of Arsenal,
puts the moves on the sequin-struck Sherrie.
Dressing up these story lines like studs on a
belt are more than two dozen radio-rock hits from the era. Audiences to
whom this music is utterly foreign will no doubt view “Rock of Ages” as
they might an unusually raucous couple of hours in the monkey cage at
the zoo. You don’t have to truly like the music to succumb to the tug of
remembrance it inspires, but you have to recognize it. If Proust had
never tasted that first madeleine, the last wouldn’t have had quite the
same impact.
I was an adolescent pop snob in the ’80s,
turning up my nose at the vulgarity of straight-up guitar-driven rock to
seek out adventurers on the fringe, which is to say anything British
involving big, bad hair of a different sort. But while waiting
impatiently for MTV to vouchsafe a morsel of Siouxsie or the Smiths, I
absorbed an awful lot of thrashy pop.
“Rock of Ages” made me realize with humility
how time can play appalling tricks on taste; songs that used to make my
skin crawl and my lip curl, having now acquired the patina of age,
brought forth a stream of affectionate recollection. “Don’t Stop
Believing” and “Waiting for a Girl Like You” and “We Built This City”
are not the musical equivalents of classic Bordeaux vintages, but I
never would have guessed that wine coolers could age this well.
The performances blend sincere conviction and knowing parody. Mr. Maroulis, an alum of “American Idol,”
possesses a soulful, pure and intense voice that negotiates the
mountains of melisma and cuts through the electricity with ease. He
isn’t required to do anything intense in the acting department, but has a
natural, laid-back presence that invites you to root for Drew. Ms.
Spanger, a veteran of several Broadway shows, sings with a matching
ferocity, and plays the hard-used heroine with a smidgen of real
winsomeness.
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