MUSICAL REVIEW: ROCK OF AGES
12 May'10

'Rock of Ages' an intoxicating brew

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 4 out of 5

TORONTO – If this is your grandmother’s ROCK OF AGES, then, at the very least, you’ve got one very colourful grandmother.

Because, title notwithstanding, the new Mirvish musical that opened with great hoopla at the Royal Alexandra Tuesday has nothing to do with old time religion, favouring instead the good old-fashioned trinity of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

Specifically, that would be the rock ’n’ roll of the late ’80s, when names like Styx, White Snake and Twisted Sister held centre stage and the sexes were locked in close combat to see who could have the tightest clothes and the biggest hair. Just how tight and how big is quickly missing as ROCK OF AGES kicks off its story in the heart of Los Angeles’ seediest strip, circa 1980-something, in a little ’boite' called The Bourbon Room, ruled over by Dennis, an aging hippy (played by David W. Keeley).

As a kick-ass house band rockets us into the appropriate era on a wave of decibels, Chris D’Arienzo’s funhouse book introduces us to the local fauna — mostly wannabe rockers like Aaron Walpole’s Lonny, a Belushi-like character who becomes the evening’s narrator, and the dreamer Drew, as played by WE WILL ROCK YOU’s Yvan Pedneault, a kid who’s cleaning up at the Bourbon Room (in the broom and plunger sort of way) while he waits for the opportunity to clean up in the world of rock. Enter lovely Sherrie (THE SOUND OF MUSIC’s Elicia MacKenzie, kicking a few habits), a refugee from small-town America, seeking fame and fortune in Tinseltown.

While various subplots unfold — an urban-renewal plot that will see The Bourbon Room on the rocks and ongoing pyrotechnics in a feuding rock band called Arsenal — Drew and Sherrie fall in love, discover that true love never runs smooth and spend the rest of the show trying to get together.

In the process, D’Arienzo’s book not only offers Pedneault and MacKenzie a chance to demonstrate their impressive vocal chops in the world o’ rock, it also gives choreographer Kelly Devine an opportunity to work a bit of theatrical alchemy as she spins Sunset Strip sleaze into sexy silver plate.

It also offers a wealth of opportunity for a supporting cast who, for the most part, lose little time in seizing it. Keeley brings a touching, avuncular bewilderment to his performance, and while the charm of his character wears pretty thin, Walpole never falters. There’s great work too, from Peter Deiwick as the man who happily puts the ‘arse’ in Arsenal, from Angela Teek as a call-me-mother madam and from Victor A. Young and Cody Scott Lancaster as a pair of Germans out to conquer America, one urban renewal at a time.

Although it seems to take a few minutes to find its audience, under the direction of Kristin Hanggi, ROCK OF AGES is an intoxicating brew, for all that it is mostly foam, thanks to a book that never for a moment even flirts with anything serious. What gives it its kick, of course, is the music — more than 30 tunes including Hit Me With Your Best Shot, We Built This City, Don’t Stop Believin’ and I Want to Know What Love Is that prove musical nostalgia remains the most potent form of time travel.

Rambunctiously sexist, ROCK OF AGES should not be compared to MAMMA MIA! although it often is — and not just because D’Arienzo’s book makes the MM book look like literature by comparison. For all its lightness, MAMMA MIA! really did try to be good musical theatre, whereas ROCK OF AGES is at its best when it mocks the genre, violating the fourth wall and sending it up with abandon.

MAMMA MIA! tried to seduce. ROCK OF AGES is content to simply overwhelm with its exuberance.