Through Sunday Jan. 29

I was talking with Van Hughes, the punk-styled actor/singer who plays Johnny in “Green Day’s American Idiot,” Tuesday night after the opening, during the after-party at Salvatore’s. I was saying how the 90-minute show came hurtling at you, one song smashing into another, a whirlwind of tight choreography and that the idea not to have an intermission was a good one – just keep it careening. Hughes, who played the role on Broadway, too, nodded and said, “It’s geared toward a generation that’s geared toward over stimulus.”

     Whether that over-stimulation (and ready acceptance of it) is good or bad or mixed is a topic for another day. But it works here, here being the Opera House where “American Idiot” remains through Sunday Jan. 29. It won two Tonys on Broadway last year. Hughes played Johnny on Broadway; one of the other leads, Scott J. Campbell, was also on Broadway as Tunny.

     By now, the notion that rock ‘n’ roll can translate to theater is pretty much universally accepted – “Hair” (and its Diane Paulus revival last year), “Tommy,” “Spring Awakening.” What isn’t always accepted is how well that rock ‘n’ roll works. (I’ve seen “Jesus Christ Superstar” on the big stage with Ted Neely and thought it dreadful; I’ve also seen it done on a small stage by the now-defunct Boston Rock Opera group and seen it rock with humor and passion.) Rockers have to accept the fact that a theater experience is not a rock show per se. (I suppose theater people have to accept a certain decibel level, which is loud but not crushing.) Although, when Campbell came prancing through the after-party, he exclaimed, “It’s just a big ol’ rock show” when a fan praised the production.

    Not exactly. But there’s not a whole lot of dialog and there is a lot of pop-punk music – Green Day’s “American Idiot” album from 2004, plus a few from the followup “21^st Century Breakdown,” a B-side and a new one. The theme is one of desperate youth, a timeless entry in the rock ‘n’ roll canon – go back to the Who’s “Quadrophenia” for one of the best long-form takes on that. “American Idiot” is that updated, brought to suburbia and people by guys that are angry, callow or bored. The show’s opening is a total blast, the song “American Idiot” spat out by the cast (and a six-piece band )on an industrial set  with a couple of dozen TVs and, pre-song, a barrage of ready-for-war pronouncements from George W. Bush and various blips from pop culture 2004. Power chords! Agitation! Angst! Celebration! The book is by Green Day singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong and director Michael Mayer (who also directed the stellar “Spring Awakening”).

 

   The story, more or less: When the show opens the guys sprawling around the couch, pissed off and bored, might have come from Black Flag’s “TV Party” video, done back during the first hardcore punk era, which was, yikes, 30-plus years ago. Johnny and Tunny want to escape the ‘burbs for the (un-named) city. Their wish is to “leave behind a land of make-believe that don’t believe in me.” They want to bring Will (Jake Espstein) along but he’s got to stay home because girlfriend, Heather (Leslie McDonel). Johnny finds a new gal, Whatshername (Gabrille McClinton), but also hooks up with a drug dealer St. Jimmy (Joshua Kobk). Meanwhile, Tunny has joined the military and has gone off to war in Iraq. (He’s been lured by those military ads on TV.) He comes back not entirely whole. The hospital fantasy scene with him and his nurse (Nicci Claspell) is mesmerizing; both do this aerial dance, coming together, clinching and drifting apart, at all sorts of angles, all while singing “Extraordinary Girl.” (It’s as a gorgeous and moving a flight sequence as I’ve seen on stage.) And, it’s worth mentioning here that although the combustible punk songs are Green Day’s forte – “Jesus of Suburbia,” “City of the Damned,” “Know Your Enemy,” the more reflective ballads – “21 Guns,” “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” “Are We the Waiting” work well, and offset the onslaught. In these lives, highs come quickly; so do lows. Desperation, temporary triumph, futility – all just a shot away.

   I’ll admit to some confusion during the constant action about which character was doing what. The storylines tangle up in knots and there’s not much time to catch your breath. Which, upon reflection, is fine – you catch snippets – emotional, cathartic nuggets – even if you can’t quite piece the whole thing together as it happens. Not unlike, well, a rock ‘n’ roll set. The choreography by Stephen Hoggett is just superb. There’s a near constant swirl of action, sometimes with just a couple of characters, but much with the entire 17-person cast.

A bit more from my chat with Hughes, post-show: He played opposite Armstrong when Billie Joe stepped in for a brief time on Broadway playing St. Jimmy. “I got to teach Billie Joe the role,” Hughes said. An honor, of course. Hughes is a triathlon competitor and he said while training in 2007 the “American Idiot” album “got me through that.”

Now, Hughes says, “My job is friggin’ awesome. On Broadway, I was swing – I had to know ten parts.” (He was part of the ensemble before stepping into the Johnny role.) Here, I get to be a bad-ass, go crazy and make out with a girl. If you get to curse and scream and make out with a girl and use a gun, this is good.”

For Hughes, who’s been the “Law & Order” franchise (hey, he’s a New York actor), this is a dream gig. He was also in “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Lights” during 110 preview shows and notes, “I’m the guy who replaced the guy who got hurt. I’ve been an aerialist since 2005 and I was swung into the wall four times during rehearsal.”

What did he want people to take away from “American Idiot?”

“I just want them to get a feeling of life post 9/11,” Hughes says. “It’s not just one color there’s a lot of ripples that come from that moment. It shows you choices people make, and it’s topical – it's choices people still make. And when the show says is this (war) will happen again.”

Shows: Thursday at 7:30,  Friday at 8, Saturday at 2 and 8, Sunday at 1 and 6:30. Tickets: $145-$20.

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