Did we have nothing but a good time, to paraphrase those Poison poets, at the premiere of Rock of Agesthe popular musical celebrating the rock of the 1980s?
Posted at 4:50 p.m.
Like the girl in Don’t Stop Believin’ of Journey, Sherrie Christian (Lunou Zucchini) leaves her village to try her luck elsewhere. She will first end up in the smell of urine in the Bourbon Room, a fictional bar modeled on the mythical Whiskey a Go Go on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, and will fall in love with the cute Drew Boley (Jordan Donoghue), who also dreams of glory, while he picks up empty bottles.
The problem ? Trouble is, neither Sherrie nor Drew know they’re in the jungle and their dreams might die, if they’re not wary of the vultures. The Bourbon Room itself could die under the wrecking ball as a German real estate developer plots to clean up one of the most sinful stretches of street in North America.
Created in Los Angeles in 2005, before finding success on Broadway from 2009, then being brought to the big screen in 2012 with results almost as painful as the current voice of Vince Neil, the musical Rock of Ages, directed by Joël Legendre, brought to life Thursday evening on the stage of the Théâtre St-Denis the most generous proliferation of fringes, fishnet stockings and tight jeans since the dissolution of the Nuance group.
Speaking of nuance: the original production did not shine with the finesse of its humor and its Quebec counterpart rushes into a similar vase. While the first name of the character of the protester Régina rhymed in English with a word designating a part of the female reproductive system, it is her surname which, in French, rhymes with a vernacular expression typically Québécois, designating the same part of the body. .
Vomit jokes, jock jokes, yard jokes. The texts by Olivier Berthiaume, according to the libretto by Chris D’Arienzo, are based on a considerable number of facilities, which underlines a staging which also opts for the same avenue. When the bad German isn’t sporting a Hitler mustache, Joël Legendre generates a few cheap smiles by disguising comedian Normand Carrière as a stripper.
But the problem is less about the coarseness of the texts – we are able to take it – than about an indecision in the tone, which oscillates between the big joke and the wink, without us always knowing you have to laugh in the first or second degree. This choice to constantly break the 4e wall – Rock of Ages is a kind of musical metacomedy in which the characters are not unaware that they are musical comedy characters – also sometimes turns into a crutch.
Nor is it enough to poke fun at the thinness of its plot, as substantial as that of a Whitesnake music video, to entirely clear it. By dint of repeating, through the character of emcee Loony, how much the show deliberately contains clichés as well as a few lengths, Rock of Ages almost ends up convincing us of it. One thing is certain: the romantic destiny of Sherrie and Drew, as well as that of the Bourbon Room, could not be more indifferent to us.
air-guitar inevitable
The rose of Rock of Ages, unlike that of Poison, therefore does not have only one spine. But like many jukebox musicals, his repertoire is made up of such a barrage of hits that you would have to have left your rocker heart at home not to hit at least a few chords of air guitar.
Drawing mainly from the peroxide metal of the 1980s, the show grafts onto the big tunes of Twisted Sisters, Quiet Riot and Warrant hits associated with the beginning of the same decade, signed REO Speedwagon, Journey and Foreigner. Rock of Ages should also be preceded by a traumatic warning: you could come out of Saint-Denis with, prisoner of your noggin, the worst song in the history of humanity, We Built This City of Starship.
The flawless cast also saves the day, starting with Tommy Joubert as the narrator Loony, who addresses the audience with an intensity somewhere between Sam Kinison and Jean-Marc Parent. Rémi Chassé, the only authentic rocker among the performers, portrays a deliciously despicable Stacee Jaxx, a hybrid between the Christ complex of David Lee Roth and the cerebral atrophy of Bret Michaels.
The endearing and very vocal Lunou Zucchini manages to give several dimensions to an archetypal character and Jordan Donoghue not only has the face of the job, but also the organ allowing him to measure himself against certain refrains which strongly solicit the vocal cords.
But there is nothing in Rock of Ages than a very good 1980s rock tribute show could not offer you, and for much less. It’s quite possible that you won’t have any more memories of it the next day than the members of Mötley Crüe of recording their greatest albums.
Rock of Ages
Saint Denis TheaterUntil November 6