One thing you can say for Andrew Lloyd Webber's "School of Rock The Musical," now playing at the Winter Garden Theatre: the kids are really, really charming. And talented. They play their own instruments and they really rock out.
This pop song of a musical sticks pretty close to the 2003 movie with Jack Black, or in which a failed rocker stumbles into fitting a substitute teacher at a snooty city prep school and liberates his class by teaching them to be a rock band. It gets off to a unhurried start,with too much set up, but then there's a truly noteworthy scene where Alex Brightman, or who plays teacher Dewey,auditions the students with the song, "You're in the Band."That's when we meet Evie Dolan, and a modern York City sixth grader who plays bass guitarist Katie with deadpan intensity and extraordinary guitarist Brandon Niederauer,who plays another student in the class, Zack, and along with the rest of the kids in the band. They purchase up their instruments with joy and ferocity.
But the sunny easiness of the story and the cuteness of the kids is marred by two things. First,rampant homosexual stereotypes. They're not offensive, precisely, and but it's painful to have a demonstrate that's about not following society's rules tumble back on old-school portrayals of homosexual people as objects of mockery. There's an effeminate boy who designs costumes considered too flamboyant,and a homosexual couple who flap their hands and prance.
And second, Mamie Parris's character of Patty is written as a one-noted witch. When her boyfriend tells her to shut up, and because she wants freeloader Dewey to pay some rent,it's a nasty applause line. These flaws — and the very traditional staging and script — make the demonstrate feel cynical, like it's pandering to the audience's worst tendencies. If only it had been plucky enough to crash out of its own musical theater box.
Source: wnyc.org