When The Who’s Tommy first detonated on Broadway in 1993, director Des McAnuff won the Tony, and damned if he won’t do it again this season — or at least snag a nomination. His revival direct from Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, with Tony-winning book by him and The Who’s rock’n’roll genius and committed guitar smasher Pete Townsend, is just about perfect as it relies on 30 years of technology progress to bring it up-to-thrilling-often-chilling-date.
For its look and sound, he’s got set designer David Korins, projection designer Peter Nigrini, costumer Sarafina Bush, lighting designer Amanda Zieve, and sound designer Gareth Owen operating as if they were stage conjurers stirring a sizzling cauldron. It’s true that the sleek, stark industrial result isn’t the first of its kind, but it indisputably reaches new heights.
Their work is, of course, in the service of The Who’s ground-breaking 1969 rock opera, the tale of deaf, dumb and blind Tommy Walker, whose “See Me Feel Me Touch Me Heal Me” must be among the most famous eight words in any 1960s rock song and whose undiminished sense of touch turns him into a pinball wizard with influence over millions.
[Read Bob Verini’s ★★★★★ review here.]
Having imagined the story under the influence of Indian spiritual master Meher Baba during the days when the likes of the Beatles were racing to India for guidance, Townsend put a plot together with some of the best items from his chart-climbing two-record Tommy set — “Pinball Wizard” “Acid Queen,” “Listening to You,” “Fiddle About,” and “I’m Free,” prominent among them.
At the time, the storyline, was considered by many as relatively loose, a series of dots open for connecting by McAnuff when Townsend and he collaborated on the 1993 stage adaptation. (Ken Russell’s 1975 film, with The Who’s Roger Daltrey as Tommy, took quite different liberties.)
Basically, Tommy — initially intended by Townsend to be born deaf, dumb, and blind — is robbed of those senses when his father returns from World War II after having been reported missing and presumed dead. In a dramatic moment Captain Walker shoots his mother’s new boyfriend, whereupon both adult Walkers insist to Tommy that he hasn’t heard or seen any such thing.
The young boy reacts accordingly. His parents repeatedly try to restore his sight and hearing, but no luck. His only interests are pinball machines and standing before a mirror. Only when frustrated Mrs. Walker smashes the mirror does he regain his senses and, as the pinball wizard he’s become, transforms his followers into a cult that ultimately abandons him.
There’s the long (the very long) and short of it, for which Townsend has now been quoted as saying, “Our new production of Tommy will be a reinvention aimed directly at today.” It’s not an unusual remark for anyone involved in a property’s return, and surely the composer-lyricist (a few others made minor contributions) is correct about what the above-mentioned creative team accomplishes.
He may also have a point about the younger audiences that McAnuff and he hope to attract. It could be said, for instance, that Tommy’s communication difficulties reflect today’s newer generations with their isolating cell-phone reliance — as well as it presents parents attempting to get through to their constantly distracted children.
There may be another quite different way to read Tommy. It could be taken — at least in part — as a parable about the 1945 World War II end, which, one of Nigrini’s projections informs, is when, on his father’s return, Tommy loses his ability to see and hear. (The Who’s Townsend was born in 1945, Daltrey and John Entwistle in 1944, Keith Moon in 1946.)
A persuasive case could be made that Tommy represents a post-war world that has been forever changed, a world that never figures out quite how to live with the aftermath of something often called “The Good War.”
By the way, there is a curious gesture deaf and blind Tommy makes when, arms usually held limply at his side, he lifts them — or they’re lifted for him — into what echoes a Heil sign. It’s difficult not to read that as somehow meaningful. The move doesn’t eventually follow through — as many of the loose plot points don’t exactly — but it’s worth considering.
As surely suggested above, it’s not only the set, lighting, sound design, and projections that factor into so ideal a Tommy. There’s McAnuff’s flawless direction and Lorin Latarro’s choreography, which seems to be founded on a series of aggressive movements. It’s a marvel of brilliant action when “Pinball Wizard” ends the first act on a production high note. Especially, there’s Rick Fox’s conducting a hot rock band.
Ali Louis Bourzgui is a lighted stick of dynamite as Tommy, and, at the performance I saw, Cecilia Ann Popp as Tommy Age 4 and Reese Levine as Tommy Age 10 were wonders of blank silence. Alison Luff as Mrs. Walker and Adam Jacobs as Captain Walker embody parental determination. John Ambrosino fiddles around nastily as licentious Uncle Ernie. Christina Sajous makes a devilish dervish of an Acid Queen. Bobby Conte has a good time as Cousin Kevin. Indeed, the entire cast works at full-throttle energy.
Let’s just say for a moment that McAnuff and crew on-stage and backstage have morphed into pinball wizards themselves. As such, they’re hitting record-breaking numbers on the flashing and whistling revival machine they’re playing.
The Who’s Tommy opened March 28, 2023, at the Nederlander Theatre. Tickets and information: tommythemusical.com
