The 2009 Tony
Award-winning musical American Idiot, featuring the incredible music from GreenDay’s 2004 Grammy Award-winning album of the same name, has stopped in Montreal
for a brief two day stay at the Placedes Arts. A pair of shows took place on Saturday, January 4, with the finale
set for Sunday, January 5 at 4 p.m.
This is
essentially a show based on the lives of three male best friends: Johnny, Will
and Tunny whose lives go in complete different directions. An energetic young cast of 16 is backed up by a
band and a pretty effective set featuring 25 television monitors. The musical begins
with a series of news flashes, including the voice of former American President
George W. Bush. This all takes place after the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks. The show itself gets off to a very energetic start, with the actual
song “American Idiot” being played out.
The virtually sold out Salle Wilfred
Pelletier audience at my showing ate it all up. There were clearly loads of
Green Day fans in the crowd. Keep in mind that the subject matter is for mature
audiences, there is a lot of profanity and the music is very very loud. While the
actual dialogue was sometime difficult to hear clearly, I took advance of the
two large simultaneous translation screens on each side of the stage.
As the
storyline goes, Will stays behind because his girlfriend is pregnant; Tunny
goes to war; and Will moves to the big city.
There are 21 songs in all and
this is a 90-minute production straight through without any intermission.
Besides “American Idiot,” the audience
seemed to really appreciate some other popular hits such as “Boulevard of
Broken Dreams,” “21 Guns,” “Wake Me Up When September Ends, “21st Century Breakdown,” and an unreleased
love song, “When It’s Time.”
It is a great show and with the very few
Broadway productions which roll through Montreal, one worth trying to get
tickets for on Sunday. For more information go to www.pda.qc.ca
or www.evenko.ca.
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