The kids love Kanye and smartphones, but their main competition is. “A show called School of Rock should not have boring numbers!” Sure, it makes sense to set up the school with a crisp marching song, but do we really need a second and third dull faculty song? “Why are there so many boring numbers?” I asked my companion. And the rock score is repeatedly punctuated by preppy snoozers. There are also a bunch of weird, unexpected sections where dialogue is sung like an opera, and none of these work. And seeing the kids headbang and “throw devil horns” is cute for a minute, but far from the real rebellious soul of the musical genre. Just using the sound of surging overamped electric guitars of ’70s or ’80s metal does not a compelling score make. If rock music was this devoid of melody, it never would have taken off. These improvements in Julian Fellowes‘s script are appreciated, but on the whole they feel minor. Then she makes the conscious decision to let the kids enjoy a concert, just like she did when she was young. This time around, Rosalie has a musical awakening in which she realizes she’s let the joie de vivre fade from her life. In the film, he does this by getting her drunk, which is pretty deplorable. But, the kids are better actors than the film actors, which is a relief, and the musical smartly shows the their home lives so the audience can see what the kids are really rebelling from: overly demanding dads (no moms for some reason, just dads) pushing them to follow in their footsteps. Another improvement is the key scene where Dewey convinces the principal to let him take the kids to a Battle of the Bands. Surprisingly, the kid characters don’t get so fleshed out only a few are even given flat personalities that can be summarized in one word (e.g., bossy, shy, gay, dorky). (Janes was in the original Broadway cast ensemble.) It would have been nice to see some fresher takes on these main characters, although both stage actors did admirable work in their roles, with voices, acting and stage presence to match the characters. ![]() As the stuck-up principal, Lexie Dorsett Sharp plays extremely close to the original Joan Cusack. While Janes is less of a ham than Jack Black (who isn’t?), Janes’s performance is definitely influenced by the film role. ![]() When he discovers his fifth graders have musical talents, he turns them into the rock band of his dreams, so he can finally climb to stardom “on the top of Mount Rock.” The plot revolves around a washed up rock slacker named Dewey (played by Merritt David Janes), who cons his way into a teaching job to pay rent. Show plays in Salt Lake City through June 2.
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