Review: The Who’s Tommy Is Back to Introduce a New Generation to the Best Rock Opera Ever

There are two things I want out of a production of The Who’s Tommy: for the cast to sing their faces off and for the band to hit me with a wall of sound. The new Broadway revival at the Nederlander Theatre, staged by original director and librettist Des McAnuff, delivers both, and then some. I had such a great time, it made me levitate, and I suspect anyone familiar with the show and the Who’s seminal 1969 rock opera will feel similarly.

With an iconic score by Pete Townshend (alongside contributions from bandmates John Entwistle and Keith Moon), Tommy was a response the Who’s desire to remain relevant while pushing the boundaries of the traditional pop song. At times a response to Townshend’s own childhood traumas, the musical begins at the dawn of World War II, when Captain Walker (Adam Jacobs) and Mrs. Walker (Alison Luff) separate as he’s called into battle, later going MIA (“his unborn child will never knoooow him”). Time passes and Mrs. Walker has a new boyfriend, but Captain Walker, who’s been in a POW camp the whole time, returns and shoots him dead in a scuffle that their 4-year-old son Tommy witnesses.

The melee causes Tommy to become psychosomatically deaf, blind, and nonverbal, and he spends his childhood either staring blankly in the mirror, getting stuffed into trashcans by his sadistic cousin Kevin (Bobby Conte), or being molested by his predatory Uncle Ernie (John Ambrosino). The Walkers try every kind of treatment to cure their son, from doctors to the local heroin-addicted prostitute (Christina Sajous). It’s only when he discovers pinball and becomes an international sensation/cult leader that Tommy (Ali Louis Bourzgui) finds himself — spurning the falsehoods around him and accepting reality.

As groundbreaking in tone and sheer emotionality as the original album was, McAnuff’s first production (at the St. James Theatre in 1993) was similarly cutting-edge, a massive spectacle that popularized the use of projections as scenic elements and introduced Broadway to real rock and roll. Never quite a linear story (and always more about seeing and feeling than realism), his new version (which originated last summer at the Goodman in Chicago) is similar in staging, but way more out there, perhaps a tad detrimentally.

Set “in the future” as a title card reads during the Overture (thrillingly played by the nine-member orchestra led by Rick Fox), it’s still England circa the wartime 1940s, dull ’50s, and swinging ’60s, and that “deaf, dumb, and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball,” but it seems to be a world within a virtual reality game. With ensemble members in terrifyingly jarring Squid Game helmets, it feels like Tommy on a spaceship or in the middle of Tron. It had me from the first chord, but I can sing every lyric and hum the instrumentals. It takes for granted that the entire audience will be made up of me, which isn’t true.

But at a time when shows seem like they’ve been focus-grouped to death, I’ll gladly take something as unapologetically weird as this production, especially since everyone involved is on the same page, committing to the daring sci-fi strangeness. David Korins’s sleek black set is dominated by screens populated by Peter Nigrini’s immersive digital backgrounds. Sarafina Bush’s costumes and Amanda Zieve’s lighting provide shocking blasts of color in this slate-gray world of technology. With the “pew-pews” of Gareth Owen’s awesome sound design locking furniture into place, you truly get the sense that you are in a video game anyone can pop out from behind a corner.

This semi-abstract take on the show doesn’t make it easy enough for the uninitiated to follow, especially considering the breathless way in which McAnuff’s production and Lorin Latarro’s kinetic, acrobatic choreography hurtles forward — at which point, I’d just recommend sitting back and letting Pete Townshend’s incredible songs take you on the wildest ride of your theater-going life. The actors sing the ever-loving shit out of it, and thanks to Owen’s perfectly calibrated audio, not only do we understand all the lyrics, but we can hear the different textures in Steve Margoshes’s bad-ass orchestrations. It’s loud as hell, but it doesn’t get in the way of storytelling.

From Sajous’s surprisingly conflicted Acid Queen to Ambrosino’s vile but broken Uncle Ernie, the actors find considerable levels of depth in their roles. Watching Conte, it’s no shock that his angsty school bully in Act 1 would socially climb his way into becoming Tommy’s violent head of security in Act 2. Luff and Jacobs display vocal colors that I’ve not heard out of them before (to be fair, Escape to Margaritaville and Aladdin aren’t quite as taxing). Their “I Believe My Own Eyes” (Townshend’s one fully original song for the stage) is a primal wail of emotion that brings down the house with the same thrill as the best-known songs.

Most of those are given to Bourzgui, who is thrilling in the title role. At once completely detached and blank, while also desperately starved for affection, his Tommy finds acceptance in his followers before realizing that no one should be as important to you as your family. Landing “Amazing Journey” and “Sensation” with finesse, Bourzgui chillingly stares us down, burying his emotions until he can’t do it anymore. It’s a deep, multi-shaded Broadway debut that will make him a star.

Throughout its history, Tommy has been seen as social commentary: a story about the importance of self-actualization and acceptance, about the consequences of religious fervor and false idolatry, about the psychological ramifications of abuse. It’s timeless in that way. This new version adds another layer, exploring how our overreliance on technology can turn us into mindless sheep. It had me from start to finish, and it’s an amazing journey I’d love to take again.