American Idiot is a musical/rock-opera based on Green Day’s hit album “American Idiot”. 
It follows three friends in their early 20’s as they want to break free of conformity and leave their too comfortable home town. All they do, day in and day out, is sit on the sofa, drink beer, and talk shit about everyone else. Right when Johnny (John Gallagher), Will (Michael Esper), and Tunny (Stark Sands) plan on leaving, Will finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant. He is forced to stay home with her while his two friends go on into the big city. What seems to be an exciting adventure turns out for the worst. Tunny gets tired of doing nothing in the city and decides to join the army, leaving Johnny all by himself. Originally believing he’d become a famous musician, Johnny finds life difficult away from his hometown. He meets a girl (Christina Sajous) that he likes and they start a relationship. Everything goes downhill for him once he’s overcome by a heroin addiction. His relationship is broken up, he’s left with no money, and we can see the evil addicted side of him, St. Jimmy (Tony Vincent), come out to play.
Overall, I was not too impressed with this hyped up rock opera. Though the music was 
exciting and blasting throughout the theatre, and though the staging was quite impressive, the rest of it was lacking. I found no sympathy for the main character Johnny as he grew worse and worse through drugs. There was hardly a storyline and at times it was a bit difficult to follow.
While the main character was unattractive, I did sympathize with Tunny who lost a leg in war. Though the story was lacking, the music that went along with his scenes was slightly more moving (if possible). St. Jimmy was a great character as well due to his ability to reach extremely high notes. His skinny body accurately portrayed his message.
There were recognizable songs throughout such as “American Idiot”, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, and “21 Guns”, but towards the end of the show, they all mixed into one due to the similarity in the way the music was played (LOUD). The costumes were very Hot Topic in that Green Day started the trend of punk rock clothing.
And while the dancing was very strong, like the music, I found that all of it was very repetitive.
American Idiot is definitely a mind blowing performance of music, but is not a strong show. Putting Green Day’s music to a slight story might intrigue some but left me wanting more.
American Idiot
St. James Theatre
September 12, 2010
Marina B. Nebro
