We love Tommy.
Audience members love Tommy.
And then there are reviewers…
Actually, the Clarence BrownTheatre production has received some great reviews from The Knoxville News-Sentinel and The UT Daily Beacon. Now, Kieron Barry writing in Metropulse joins the chorus. He says in part:
Director Sams serves also as choreographer, and it is here that her gifts truly come alive, with ensemble dancing that is high-spirited and rugged yet wholly disciplined. The most outstanding moments are those using wires, and Jonathan Visser’s Tommy is given almost carte blanche with these. His early flight to the roof by hanging onto a small balloon is but a prelude to the balletic, hypnotic extravagances of the second act.
Visser once again proves himself an actor worth watching. He happens to have a strong resemblance to Conan O’Brien, and indeed shares a manic, twitchy alertness with the comedian, which he uses here to his advantage, most especially in the climax to Act One, when, pinball-bound at last, he jerks and tremors in endless tactile frisson.
It is “Pinball Wizard,” of course, that is the high point of Tommy, and the pedalled crescendo in the build-up to this song is as unbearably exciting as anything by Rossini. The music reaches its apotheosis when the most famous phrase in the show is sung with unbelievable intensity by the leering, mohawked Quinn Q. Cason. Here he is given just a few syllables, but the effect is mesmerizing.
For all its minor flaws, the show is a glorious, messy, lovable production that is so strongly felt and urgently delivered that it’s difficult not to be won over by the sheer passion of the artists and the grandiosity of its vision. It’s the first show I’ve seen in the Clarence Brown that makes the space seem too small.
The Who’s Tommy runs through May 3. Tickets are still available for most performances — call the Clarence Brown Theatre Box Office at (865) 974-5161 or online at http://www.clarencebrowntheatre.com/.