In signs that I'm getting older, it's now 19 years since Jack Black starred in Richard Linklater's film of Mike White's script, "School of Rock". A simple family friendly comedy and the perfect use of Jack Black's skills as a leading man, it turned out to be Andrew Lloyd Webber's return to writing popular musicals after about two decades in the wilderness (unless you're a huge fan of "Whistle Down the Wind", "Woman in White", "The Beautiful Game", "Love Never Dies" or "Steven Ward"), and his first largely Rock musical in roughly 45 years (since "Jesus Christ Superstar"). The combo of flat out comedy, showing off talented children in roles that require singing, dancing, acting AND playing instruments has proved broadly appealing to a fairly wide audience. If, yes, giving this American-set high school comedy to two members of the House of Lords (Lloyd-Webber and book writer, Julian "Downtown Abbey" Fellowes) does sound a little nuts, it seems partially like a product of the same insane logic that got Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein writing a Northampton-based industrial-shoe-manufacturing musical, and that decision worked out pretty well.
In all honesty, the success of the material owes far more to the stuff transferred from the film than it does to any of the embelishments by the two noblemen and the not-a-noble lyricist Glenn Slater - Lloyd Webber's tunes rarely stretch beyond the familiar (occaisonally borrowing, acknowleged from Mozart's "Queen of the Night" aria from "The Magic Flute", unacknowledged from the bit in "If Only You Would Listen" that sounds like "Someone Else's Story" from "Chess"). The performers give it guts and energy in ensemble numbers like "Stick it to the Man", "When I climb to the top of Mount Rock" and the title song, but the deeper delvings into the teen-and-pre-teen angst here are never really given anything more than the most cursory of treatment. You can kind of smell the old-straight-white-man-ness off the show too from the treatment of women and homosexuals in the show who are both broad-brush caricatures (the two gay parents dash on and off stage screaming, the young gay kid is into Vogue and Barbra Streisand and wants to be a stylist, the women are either shrewish (Dewey's nemesis Patti) or mother figures (principal Rosalie)).
Fortunately, Marty King's directed one hell of sttrong, constantly-flowing show, with clever use of an adaptable set - well built under the supervision of John Nicholls to adapt from rock stage to apartment to classhroom to dive bar, flowing back and forth easily and standing up to some fairly vigorous performer interraction. Katrina Tang gets great sounds out of the 7-piece band plus the onstage cast, including five musician-actors. Nathan Rutrups also gets great simple rock choreography which adds spectacle when it's needed without ever feeling like dancing-for-the-sake-of-dancing.
There's strength too in the cast - Max Gambale would seem the most obvious casting ever for the role (having previously played a great Jack Black role in "High Fidelity", plus having demonstrated his rock vocal credentials in everything from "War of the Worlds" to "Jesus Christ Superstar") but here is another chance to show off just how skilled he is in a role that has him centrestage pretty much continuously, constantly energetic as the somewhat-selfish-but-still-somehow-loveable Dewey. Taylor Paliaga as principal Rosalie is given some of the bigger singing burden, carrying both the aforementioned Mozart Aria and the sentimental "Where Did The Rock Go", as well as being a somewhat sensible straightwoman to Dewey's antics. The rest of the adult and kid cast have great energy dashing around as parents, rock musicians, bar patrons and faculty or as members of the class, with special mention to Edith Baggeley's officiousness as Summer and Hester McDonald's fine rock voice as Tomika.
In short this is a surprisingly fun show, built on thinnish material but making great use of it to show off an entertaingly stacked cast. It's a straightforward crowdpleaser that did its job of pleasing a crowd well.
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