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Musique:
In 1969, The Who released their first “rock opera”, Tommy, as a double concept album. Via circular vinyls, hundreds of thousands listened to Tommy’s story, told through Roger Daltry’s soaring vocals, Pete Townshend’s thrashing guitar riffs, John Entwistle’s thumping bass line, and Keith Moon’s furious drumming.
In 1970, The Who performed Tommy’s songs in various concerts, most notably at England’s Isle of Wight Festival and New York City’s Metropolitan Opera. These songs were played out of order and were often separated by other songs in The Who’s repertoire. These concerts were a chance for The Who to connect with their fans and foster a sense of togetherness.
In 1975, Ken Russell adapted Tommy into a feature-length film.
Here, the audience's experience of Tommy was visually fantastic. Audiences didn’t merely hear Townshend or Daltry sing of Tommy’s Holiday Camp, they watched Uncle Ernie, uniformed in green, lead Tommy's parading fans through its gates. They didn’t just hear the band play “Acid Queen”, but watched her shimmer in red and encase Tommy in an iron maiden of syringes. Exaggerated scenes like these lent Russell’s film a trippy, psychedelic feel.
Russell’s film also notably respected Tommy's rock ’n’ roll roots. Traditional actors like Ann-Margret, who played Mrs. Walker, and Jack Nicholson, who played The Specialist, were cast (against Townshend’s desire to avoid traditional actors), but musicians littered the film.
Townshend, Daltry, Entwistle, and Moon all graced the screen. Moon and Daltry even played two of the film’s lead characters: Moon portrayed a disturbingly maniacal Uncle Ernie and Daltry lit up the screen as a howling, bare-chested Tommy. Guest musicians also landed notable roles. Tina Turner sang as The Acid Queen, Eric Clapton played a preacher, and Elton John hammered a piano-pinball machine while singing “Pinball Wizard.”
In 1992, Tommy was adapted for live theatre with the La Jolla Playhouse production of The Who’s Tommy, the rock-opera that in 1993 reached Broadway.
Des McAnuff, the head of La Jolla, directed both productions and collaborated with Townshend to adapt Tommy for the stage. This adaptation preserved the original album’s spirit, but avoided the fantasy and rock ’n’ roll showcasing of Russell’s film. Instead of bombarding the audience with tripped-out imagery, McAnuff’s and Townshend’s adaptation grounded Tommy’s story in plot, emphasizing his rise to superstardom and decline to normality. Instead of featuring contemporary music stars, it cast 24 traditional actors.
The Who’s Tommy also departed structurally from the original album and Russell’s film. The most drastic changes involved Tommy’s family. Rather than dying at the hand of Mrs. Walker's lover, as he did in Russell’s film, Captain Walker murdered the lover and lived on to nurture Tommy through his catatonic state. Captain Walker and Mrs. Walker were also given the new song, “I Believe My Own Eyes”, which Townshend wrote to express their growing frustration with Tommy's illness and to further endear them to the audience. Finally, rather than dying at the hands of Tommy’s enraged followers, as they did in Russell's film, Tommy's family members--Mrs. Walker, Captain Walker, Cousin Kevin, and Uncle Ernie --are embraced by Tommy at the end of the musical. Townshend argued against some audiences’ interpretation that this embrace ends the story happily, insisting instead that Tommy doesn’t condone the abuse he suffered at their hands, that while he hugs them he could, perhaps, be plotting his revenge.
Even if one rejects Townshend’s appraisal, Tommy’s embrace of the family who wronged him suggests, at the very least, that he has come to terms with the world around him and with all the good and bad that world entails. This harmony distinguished the La Jolla and Broadway productions of Tommy and has informed the new interpretation you’re about to see on stage in all its visual excitement, musical complexity, and thematic inspiration.