© The Hartford Courant
March 31, 1999


Bushnell's 'TOMMY' A Barrage Of Rock
By Malcolm Johnson

At the intermission of "The Who's Tommy: Broadway in Concert," The Bushnell's
opening night audience seemed struck dumb. Were these the theatergoers who voted
that a most desired musical was Pete Townshend's rock opera about a pinball wizard?

By the end of this bizarre tale (just how does playing a mean pinball make a kid
so rich and famous, after all?) the crowd seemed to have adjusted itself to the
barrage of sound, though this was far from a universal standing ovation. But the
final choral surge sent out a strong harmonic wave through the house, reminding us
that The Bushnell, whatever its shortcomings for live theater, is a great temple
for rock.

Quite correctly, The Bushnell has designated its production of "The Who's Tommy:
Broadway in Concert." Well, at least the concert part is truthful enough. Despite
the use of some of the slides created by Wendell K. Harrington for Des McAnuff's
smashing production at the St. James Theatre, the new production by Worth Gardner
bears only a tangential relationship to the original. The touring "Tommy"
co- produced by The Bushnell and The Playhouse Theater in Wilmington, Del., is
more like a rock show than musical theater -- in large part because of the
material itself.

The inspiration for this "Broadway in Concert" production clearly is "Chicago," one
of the great hits of the '90s, a revival that is far more successful in New York
and on tour than it was the first time around. But "Chicago" is very different
from "Tommy." Because it was created for the Broadway stage, it has characters. In
The Who's surreal opera, there is really only Tommy himself, as a silent boy and as
a adult with a strange genius. Cousin Kevin, Uncle Ernie, Sally Simpson, the Acid
Queen and Dad and Mum, Captain and Mrs. Walker, are mere outlines, shadows.

"Tommy" was born at a time when rock was exploding in the wake of the Beatles'
"Sgt. Pepper." Everybody saw rock opera as the new direction that would fuse the
electric impulses into art. But "Tommy" was meant to be a concert piece, dominated
by the reedy tenor shoutings of Roger Daltry. Its meaning was sketchy, a grab bag
of themes sprung from struggling postwar Britain as its empire drained away.

Tommy, a "deaf and dumb and blind kid," traumatized by witnessing the murder of his
mother's lover by his repatriated war hero father and by his molestation by Uncle
Ernie, turned his mind to an unknown art: pinball. Drugs also figured in his
emergence, with the acid queen instructing him in life. Tommy became the new messiah,
welcoming all into his house.

It was all part of those crazy times, but it made no sense when concretized on stage,
even with McAnuff's phantasmagorical production, which planted poor Tommy atop a
spinning pinball machine, in a metaphor for the hazards of rock canonization.
Gardner's stage contains no such extravagances; the pinball machines look like
shopping carts. Instead, it feels kind of like a very long number from a television
music awards show, with the chorus in black, the Tommys in white, and the supporting
characters in various costumes, denoting no particular era. Erector set frames
suggest an outdoor concert, out of "The Rose."

The Bushnell's "Tommy" does boast a compelling and oddly holy central figure in
Michael Seelbach, a slender boyish blond with a powerful and flexible pop heldentenor.
Paul Dobie makes an amusingly leering Uncle Ernie, Michael Gruber brings a modern
rocker glam to Cousin Kevin, and Virginia Woodruff uses screaming soprano like a
siren from hell as the Acid Queen. The onstage band pours on the heavy metal and the
harmonies are strong and tight. As a concert, it is solid The Who. As musical theater,
it is far from Broadway -- even in these sad, benighted days.

THE WHO'S TOMMY: BROADWAY IN CONCERT, Music by Pete Townshend and book by Townshend
and Des McAnuff with additional music by John Entwhistle and Keith Moon; directed by
Worth Gardner; scenery designed by John Farrell; costumes designed by De Wayne
Kirchner; lighting designed by Jeffrey S. Koger; projections designed by Wendell K.
Harrington; musical direction and conducting by Scot Woolley; sound design by T.
Richard Fitzgerald. Presented by The Bushnell, Douglas C. Evans, executive director,
The Playhouse Theatre, Patricia Dill, executive director, and Jeffrey Finn
Productions, Inc., at The Bushnell.

Mrs. Simpson, Minister's Wife...Lisa Asher
Judge...........................Michael Babin
Mrs. Walker.....................Lisa Capps
Specialist......................David Aron Damane
First Officer, Hawker...........Vincent D'Elia
Uncle Ernie.....................Paul Dobie
Cousin Kevin....................Michael Gruber
Pinball Lad.....................Sean Jenness
Pinball Lad.....................David Josefsberg
Special Assistant...............Catrice Joseph
Minister........................Darren Matthias
Captain Walker..................Christopher Monteleone
Young Tommy.....................Ross Ramone
Tommy...........................Michael Seelbach
Lover, Harmonica Player.........J. Robert Spencer
Sally Simpson...................Denise Summerford
Gypsy...........................Virginia Woodruff
ENSEMBLE: Angela Garrison, David Velarde, Rachel Warren SWING: Christine Rea


main Tommy page