Fans of ‘The Outsiders’ May Want To Pause Before Shelling Out for the Broadway Production

Imagine “West Side Story” if the Jets had lived in a wealthier part of town than the Sharks, and had been a bunch of clean-cut sadists. I’m not sure if that’s what the creators of “The Outsiders: A New Musical” were going for, but after seeing this Broadway production in a recent preview, I’m thinking that may have been a starting point — along with a far more obvious one: that casual theatergoers will sooner shell out money if an already popular brand is attached. For the uninitiated, “The Outsiders” began its life as a 1967 novel by a then-teenage author, S.E. Hinton, inspired by her coming of age at Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was later adapted into a film by Francis Ford Coppola, released in 1983 and featuring a slew of future stars, among them Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, and Diane Lane. For the musical, the acclaimed director, Danya Taymor, has recruited a diverse array of similarly attractive, charismatic actors to revisit this long-beloved account of youthful class warfare. Yet they’re saddled with a book and score that, weighed down by a plodding earnestness, seldom offer the sense of transcendence that such tales — not to mention musical theater in general — ultimately require.Brody Grant, a buff Broadway newcomer, leads the cast as 14-year-old Ponyboy Curtis, one of the “Greasers” — kids from the wrong side of the tracks, named for the guck they proudly slather in their hair — locked in battle with the “Socs,” who despite their privilege seem to have an insatiable appetite for beating and torturing their less advantaged peers. (Rick Kuperman and Jeff Kuperman provide vivid fight choreography.)We know that Ponyboy is smart and sensitive, because he studies sunsets and reads long books. Mr. Grant endows him with a soulful stare and the kind of slightly nasal croon one associates more with singers in certain guitar-pop bands than leading men in musicals; the music and lyrics, by Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance — otherwise known as the Austin-based duo Jamestown Revival, described on its Facebook page as “Southern & Garfunkel” — and a “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” alumnus, Justin Levine, seem tailored to suit those traits.The Greasers in ‘The Outsiders: The Musical.’ Matthew MurphyWhile Messrs. Clay, Chance, and Levine provide a couple of fetching, folky ballads, other tunes tend to chug along forgettably, their blues accents stiffened by Mr. Levine’s pop-goes-Broadway orchestrations and arrangements. A song called “Great Expectations,” after the literary classic, a favorite of Ponyboy’s, begins, “’Scuse me, Mr. Dickens, I’ve got something on my mind,” and gets more precious from there. In fairness, the musical’s creators — who also include a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Adam Rapp, who wrote the libretto with Mr. Levine — may have been trying to serve the wide-eyed spirit of the source material; Ms. Hinton’s young adult novel was written, lest we forget, before she completed high school. And a number of performances rise above the well-meaning banality, among them Joshua Boone’s blazing take on the Greasers’ tough but beleaguered “alpha,” Dallas Winston, and Brent Comer’s powerfully sung turn as Ponyboy’s concerned oldest brother, Darryl.Sky Lakota-Lynch is sweetly affecting as Ponyboy’s best friend, Johnny Cade, who figures prominently in the musical’s final and most moving 20 minutes; this section also involves another of Ponyboy’s heroes, the poet Robert Frost, who is referenced in “Stay Gold,” a glowing ballad that emerges as the show’s musical high point.I’ll happily admit, in fact, that I got a bit choked up at this juncture. But arriving roughly two hours into “The Outsiders: The Musical,” it was, at least for me, too little, too late.

Fans of ‘The Outsiders’ May Want To Pause Before Shelling Out for the Broadway Production

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