back to "Tommy" show page

Does it matter in the slightest that The Who's rock opera
"Tommy" was first released on LP 32 long years ago? To hear
Glenn Bugala describe the seismic response to Ann Arbor
Civic Theatre's imminent reprise of Broadway's 1993 stage
production, it seems this 1969 musical epic hasn't aged a
minute.

"One of the most
striking things about our
show," says Bugala, "is
the number of male
dancers (whose usual
absence is a traditional
curse of community
theater) we've got. Not
just run-of-the-mill but
top-flight dancers. It's
just awesome, and
surprising. Where did
they all come from?"

Even more surprising
was the response triggered by the announcement of tryouts for
"Tommy" on AACT's Web site, a response that still has
Bugala shaking his head. "I had people e-mailing me from
New York, California, even England, all of them asking 'Is there
any way I can audition for "Tommy?" I just LOVE this show!'

"They'd ask, 'Where's Ann Arbor?' I'd say 'Michigan,' and
they'd ask 'Where's Michigan?' This woman in Indiana said 'I
could commute.' Someone from Minnesota wrote me asking
'Are you going to tour Minneapolis?' I had to tell him, 'We don't
tour. We're just a community theater doing this for one
weekend.' I'm still not sure he understood."

The plain fact is that Ann Arbor Civic's
Thursday-through-Sunday production at Lydia Mendelssohn
Theatre will likely lure theatergoers and rock fans (Bugala is
hoping the show sells out). Perhaps that's because unlike
often smarmy or otherwise compromised rock musicals,
"Tommy" is a show that never cops out. A legitimate opera
spun from the genius brain of composer/lyricist/guitarist Peter
Townshend (who's now 56 years old), "Tommy" is a tough,
unsentimental and often harrowingly brutal musical drama
recalling the deprivations of post-war England as epitomized
by hero/victim-turned-messiah Tommy (played by three actors
of varying ages).

For those not in the know, luckless Tommy is struck
psychologically deaf, dumb and blind after witnessing his
brutal father - returned from a German prisoner-of-war camp -
shoot his mother's lover dead. Traumatized (and physically
abused) into his own dark and silent world, Tommy - who
grows from 4 to 10 and finally to young adulthood during the
show - ultimately finds solace and communication through his
inexplicable wizardry at pinball. Given his sensory liabilities,
he's soon hyped into a media celebrity-freak, much to the
greedy delight of his avaricious mom and dad.

Tommy eventually succeeds in casting off his emotionally
imposed handicaps. Yet he finds himself just as isolated, in
the role of messianic hero to the youth of Britain and the world.
The unnaturalness of the situation reaches a bursting point:
Even as his zillions of idolaters turn against him and run riot,
Tommy faces a hard but profound truth: Only through himself -
not through his treacherous parents or his fickle fans - can he
uncover his own value and purpose in life.

"That's my take on the show's message," says Bugala, "about
finding your identity and your place in the world. It's also a
show about teen-agers, it's a very bitter show about British
history, about Britain going from a country which at one point
in the 20th century possessed one-third of the world, and in 20
years went to being just England and nothing else.

"And it is about a messiah. A messiah who has to suffer
greatly before he finds his place, finds out what he's called to
do. It's about a journey. Tommy's been inside his own mind for
14 years, but that's only the beginning for him."

Bugala - who's wanted to direct "Tommy" ever since he saw
the Broadway version - makes no secret of his desire to
mount Civic's "Tommy" as a genuine epic. "We're talking
about bringing an icon of the '60s, a remnant from the Age of
Protest, to the stage of 2002, and all the challenges that go
along with it. We've got a cast of 34, we'll have two screens
with projections that members of the art department at Eastern
Michigan University created for us. We have stage platforms
with chain-link fence on them, platforms that move around,
create the urban landscape of the show. We'll have four pinball
machines on various platforms. And since the opera's
rock-based, our band is going to be on a rear platform,
center-stage visually and visible throughout the show."

Save for the three Tommys (Maggie McCoy at age 4, Kellen
McCoy at age 10, and Dann Smallwood as teen-age Tommy)
and his parents (Curt Waugh and Carrie Wickert), each cast
member will play an average of nine different characters, says
Bugala. "Dann told me after auditions he'd been preparing for
eight months, which isn't outlandish. It is epic opera, just huge.

"We have 200 costumes, 300 light cues, 90 entrances in the
first four-and-a-half minutes, during the overture. We do the
blitz of London on stage, with lots of flashing lights, the sound
of planes dive-bombing and explosions going off. We've got
150 props, endless costume changes, and the cast itself will
be moving the set. It'll be an enormous undertaking."

Bugala's wife, Emily, (who choreographed AACT's "Evita") will
handle the choreography for "Tommy," while music director
Pamela Vachon will handle the choral cues. The show's rock
instrumentalists, led by Eric Walton, include three
keyboardists, two guitarists, bassist and drummer, "which
seems appropriate for a rock-concert show," says the
director.

Bugala - who says he loathes Ken Russell's 1974 film version
of "Tommy" - says the original opera's "been in my head for
years. I thought about every scene and its essence, how to
express it. I prefer shows that leave you saying 'WOW!' A
show that leaves you talking and thinking. And I'm still thinking
about it. This is not a show for kids. I was very affected by
blocking "Fiddle About" (in which Tommy is molested by his
Uncle Ernie) or the scene with Cousin Kevin (Tommy's
sadistic relative). These are really brutal scenes. But they have
to happen to Tommy in his journey. He has to overcome them.
That's what makes great drama."

--2/22/00