"This is NOT your father's Oldsmobile," the ad slogan proclaimed. Well, the musical "Tommy," coming next week to Salt Lake City, is NOT exactly your father's "Tommy."
Ouch. But the fact of the matter is that the Who's "rock opera" has indeed been around long enough - and through the creative mill enough times - to deserve a multigenerational perspective. The '60s and '90s models share a spirit, a tradition, great music and a basic storyline . . . but that was then and this is now.Talk to Jessica Phillips, who plays Mrs. Walker, and you'll come away convinced of her enthusiasm for "Tommy" and his long-suffering mum, and aware of time's passage (she's 24; the musical is three years older).
"My parents were relatively young and progressive," Phillips noted in a telephone conversation from Fresno, Calif., where her touring company has been performing the Broadway hit. "My father had the album, so it wasn't out of the ordinary to be vacuuming the floor on Saturday and to have the Who on, or the Rolling Stones."
"The Who's Tommy," presented by the Theater League of Utah, will be the first full-scale Broadway musical staged in the renovated Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah, beginning Tuesday, June 18, and continuing through June 23.
Dusted off and refashioned by legendary Who guitarist-songwriter Pete Townshend, its primary creator, and director Des McAnuff, this "Tommy" debuted in La Jolla, Calif., and moved on for a dazzling treatment on Broadway in 1993. The production came away with five Tony Awards during that season's ceremonies, for best director (McAnuff), choreography, scenic design, lighting and original score (Townshend).
The result, on record at least, is a tighter story, a less starry-eyed Tommy and more fully developed characters, especially among the Walker family - the captain, the Mrs. and even Uncle Ernie and Cousin Kevin. Many lyrics have been revised and adapted, and several songs actually appear in new places as the tale of the deaf, dumb and blind kid develops.
"This current interest in what was a naive and impudent rock piece back inthe late '60s has allowed me to reappraise my life as a writer," Townshend wrote in the introduction of a book about the Broadway extravaganza. "And I have learned there is a vital difference between the simple rock song and the conventional music theatre play - that it's necessary to bring a story to a conclusion, something you never have to do in rock-and-roll."
The company coming to Utah, though young, has been on the road for nearly a year with "Tommy."
Phillips started out as an ensemble member and Mrs. Walker understudy for six months, then inherited the motherly role.
"It was a great move for me because it was an easy transition in that I was already comfortable with the show technically, and of course I knew my company pretty well - it was just a question of learning the ins and outs."
Part of that was getting under the skin and into the head of Nora Walker (the first name, she discovered, is used in an earlier "Tommy" but not this one).
The actress wrote out a character analysis, creating a life for Nora Walker. This is what she decided: Mrs. Walker has a baby (Tommy) by the time she's 16 and, "as expected, someone who has a child so young has a very different perspective on what life is all about." Low in self-confidence, she lacks a true self-identity.
"When the murder happens, I think she's as shocked as Tommy is," Phillips said, and bears feelings of guilt: her sexuality, her yearning for a life of her own, paved the way for the pivotal, fatal encounter between her long-missing husband and her new lover, and she's also guilty of "putting her son through something so traumatic. . . . She carries the weight of her life and her child's life, and she puts all of her life and energy into this other person. . . .
"This woman - you could write the psychology textbook on her," she said. (Or a concept album or Broadway musical?) "She's got some baggage."
Phillips' own life seems more orderly.
Originally from New England, she's the oldest of three. She earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in musical theater from Boston's Emerson College and has had lead roles in several school and regional productions, from Sally Bowles in "Cabaret" to Dolly Levi in "Hello, Dolly!" After getting her BFA she was off to New York, where she did the usual: wait-ressed and pounded the pavement in search of work. This tour is her first professional job out of college.
Her background, Phillips said, is not uncommon among the company - and she deems the mix of youth and theatrical experience an asset.
"I would say that the majority of this company is both young and theater educated. Most are from New York, several are from Chicago, and many of us are just on the road for the first time, so it's really breaking us all in.
"But I think it's a good project to do it (this way) - while most of us are young enough to know what it's like to be inundated by a rock 'n' roll world," she said. "We have the tools to carry off the theatrical aspect but also the passion to bring this rock 'n' roll to life."
Besides Phillips, those with principal roles in the touring production include Michael Seelbach as the older Tommy (the musical has two young Tommys), Michael J. Vergoth as Capt. Walker, Rob Krahenbuhl as Uncle Ernie and Peter Connelly as Cousin Kevin.
Phillips marvels at the age makeup of the audience, as well. "We will get high school and college-aged (people) in there, and some senior citizens," sometimes those with subscriptions for a theatrical series, "but I would have to say the majority of the audience is made up of baby boomers, drawn in by their original memories of the concept album.
"There's enough spectacle - theatrical spectacle, slide projections, pyrotechnics, changing scenery - that it should appeal to just about anybody, but it's specifically the baby-boomer crowd that's impacted more viscerally, because they know the story."
"Tommy," she said, has been a part of their lives. "There's never a show that goes by when someone doesn't sing along."
Salt Lake City is the tour's second to last week. From here it is off to Boise for a few days, then this "Tommy" closes in Reno, Nev.
The year on the road has been a wonderful experience, Phillips said.
"I don't think if I had to handpick my job I could have picked something better than this. It's just so exciting! I never get tired of hearing the score, and of hearing the project as a whole - it's just a unique experience, and moving every time I do it. Every time we all do it."