Theatre in Review: School of Rock (Winter Garden Theatre)

	Alex Brightman, Dante Melucci, Evie Dolan. Photo: Matthew Murphy

In School of Rock, Andrew Lloyd Webber commits the most radical act of his career -- writing a show just for the fun of it. After years of turgid melodramas like Aspects of Love, The Woman in White, and Love Never Dies, he apparently has decided the hell with it, shedding every last bit of gothic-romantic nonsense and composing a fast, funny, adrenaline-laced entertainment based on a Jack Black comedy. Who knew he had it in him?

Of course, Lloyd Webber is backed up by some smartly chosen collaborators. Julian Fellowes, on hiatus from Downton Abbey, at first glance hardly seems to be the ideal choice for a raucous, rock-and-roll comedy, but, aside from one major proviso -- which we'll get to in a minute -- his skill at quick-sketch characterizations and his deft way with a zinger are put to excellent use here. Glenn Slater, the most incisive lyricist the composer has had since Tim Rice, finds equally solid words for the score's hard-edged anthems and quieter character songs. And, in Alex Brightman, who takes on the role originated by Black, Lloyd Webber gifts us with a freshly minted Broadway star.

Brightman is Dewey Martin, a rumpled, roly-poly bear of a man -- he looks like he irons the creases into his clothing -- who, now in his 30s, is still chasing the ever-receding goal of rock stardom. His already unpromising career reaches its nadir when, thanks to his focus-stealing antics, he is fired from No Vacancy, the band he founded. (In the first number, "I'm Too Hot for You," he takes the stage with his band, carrying on as if in the throes of a conniption fit until the lead singer loses his temper.) Retreating to his epically cluttered bedroom where he hides under -- and is virtually indistinguishable from -- the bedclothes, he is confronted by his landlord, Ned, his former bandmate (in a group called Maggot Death) and now a substitute teacher. Dewey hasn't paid his rent in months, and Ned, egged on by his controlling fiancée, Patty, says he must pay up or move out. When Dewey takes a phone call offering Ned a gig at a posh private school, he decides -- without the tiniest qualifications -- to take the job and pocket the cash.

What follows is classic fish-out-of-water comedy as Dewey, impersonating Ned, stalks the halls of Horace Green School, displaying plenty of slacker attitude, bemusing the button-downed faculty and confronting a classroom full of uptight, overscheduled fifth graders. (It's the kind of place where parents drop $50,000 a year to keep their kids on the success track until, as one song has it, "They are dispersed to Harvard, or, at worst, Cornell.") Dewey intends to preside over a few weeks of organized recess, letting the kids run amok while he sleeps off his latest hangover, until he hears them playing Mozart in a music class. Stunned by their talent -- "I thought you were a bunch of little douche bags," he tells them, in admiration -- he decides to build a preteen rock group to crush No Vacancy in an upcoming battle of the bands. Soon, his little band of junior overachievers can be heard belting out a little ditty called "Stick It to the Man."

Fellowes' book, based on Mike White's screenplay, cruises through the exposition smoothly, but one wishes he had done a little bit more to make the film's shaky premise plausible. As it is, you are asked to believe that Dewey, who dresses a half step above a homeless person, is accepted into the Horace Green community with only mild bemusement from the faculty, that he can hold lengthy rehearsal sessions with only one teacher suspecting something, and that he manages to obtain permission to take the students on a "field trip" to the battle of the bands on the same day as parents' night activities. It's a lot to swallow, and without Fellowes' knack for making likable characters, School of Rock would be in big trouble.

Then again, director Laurence Connor's confident handling of a big, fast-moving production and a cast heavily populated by the under-12 set goes a long way toward obtaining our emotional engagement in what amounts to a heavy-metal update of The Music Man. Brightman is simply a wonder; whether executing the best spit-take you've seen in ages, sentencing one of his charges to sitting in the corner for the crime of liking Taylor Swift, or tearing through an I'll-get-revenge barn-burner titled "When I Climb to the Top of Mount Rock," he is the show's energy cell and its authentic, good-natured heart. Our musical theatre doesn't produce too many clowns these days, but he is the real thing. He's also capable of handling leading man duties, partnering gracefully with Sierra Boggess, as the school's chilly principal who gets defrosted by Dewey. Boggess is a clear case of luxury casting in a glorified supporting role, but she goes about her business like a pro and does very nicely by one of the score's few ballads, the wistful "Where Did the Rock Go?" There are solid contributions from Spencer Moses as Ned, who yearns to once again don tight jeans, a mesh T-shirt, and black lipstick, and Mamie Parris, an amusing harridan as Patty. (She tells Ned he can't live his life being pushed around, while giving him a shove that practically knocks him into the wings.)

Casting a show with more than a dozen child actors can't be easy, but Connor has found some astoundingly gifted musicians to front Dewey's band, several of whom give standout performances. Isabella Russo is a riot as Summer, whose take-charge, take-no-prisoners manner lands her the role of band manager. She brings down the house during the climax when, with a wave of her hand, she dismisses the legion of frantic parents who have descended on the concert hall where the battle is taking place, leaving them to be pushed out by burly security men. Luca Padovan is delightful as Billy, the group's costume designer, who tries to avoid his father's critical tongue by stashing the latest edition of Vogue inside a copy of Sports Illustrated. Bobbi MacKenzie is sweet and amusing as the painfully shy Tomika, who stuns everyone with a killer rendition of "Amazing Grace," then instantly displays some natural-born-diva attitude. The band is led by the fantastically talented Brandon Niederauer, Jared Parker, Evie Dolan, and Dante Melucci. JoAnn M. Hunter's choreography combines head-banging dance moves for the kids with subtler movement patterns in numbers like "If Only You Would Listen," a touching number in which the kids lament their self-involved parents.

Anna Louizos' scenic design contrasts the baronial, half-timbered look of Horace Green with the grungy, brick-walled stages that are Dewey's natural habitat. She also makes room for a couple of apartment interiors and a roadhouse where Boggess' principal, after a couple of beers, gets to unleash her inner rock fan. Natasha Katz's lighting is subtle and understated in the school scenes and full of amusing arena-concert bombast when the bands are in performance. The climactic numbers take place on a stage-within-the-stage, which rolls out complete with its own truss and lighting rig. Louizos' costumes take in school uniforms, the ultra-preppy styles favored by Horace Green faculty and parents, and the stretch leather, boots, and headbands worn by the members of No Vacancy. Mick Potter's sound design can get very, very loud -- the show is called School of Rock, after all -- but it modulates, depending on the scene, and remains generally clear and intelligible throughout.

Most of all, there is the unusual experience of an Andrew Lloyd Webber score that seems designed no more -- and no less -- than to give the audience a rocking good time. (My favorite number is the galvanic "You're in the Band," in which Dewey excites the kids with the particulars of his mad little plan.) Throughout, the composer's deft orchestrations produce Mozartian gavottes and roof-rattling rock anthems, as the case demands. It was getting too easy to dismiss Lloyd Webber as yesterday's news; even he said as much in an interview a year or so ago, stating that he feared that audiences no longer liked what he had to offer. With School of Rock, that conversation officially ends; he may be in his late 60s, but his new show sounds like the work of a much younger man. -- David Barbour