By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Right after “Rock of Ages” opens with a rousing introductory number, the two lovers meet. By the end of the first act they’ve had major costume changes, except he still has the leopard print pants. You’ve got to have those leopard print pants – this is the 1980s! Doubt it? Look at the hair.
Welcome to the West Hollywood, in the heyday of the glam metal scene. The score is packed with hits. That scene setting production number includes “Cum on Feel the Noize” (Quiet Riot), “Just Like Paradise” (David Lee Roth) and “Nothin’ But a Good Time” (Poison). Hits by Whitesnake, Styx, Starship ,REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister and more dot the score igniting a raucous dance party around a 1980s jukebox.
The raunch-laced plot that’s stitched together to connect the hits is as flimsy as a groupie’s hot pants.
After a year-plus delay because of the pandemic for the ages, 3B Productions presents “Rock of Ages” at the Maumee Indoor Theatre, opening tonight (May 20) at 8 p.m. with shows Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Click for tickets.
This is, director Joe Barton said, a musical about “debauchery and decadence.” And 3B delivers.
Lonny Barnett (Tyler Strayer) announces at one point his dream – lots a talk about following your dreams here – was to have a career in serious theater, but instead here he was telling “poop jokes.” And he’s having a blast.
That’s the way those dreams go, even for guys in leopard print pants. “The dreams you come in with may not be the dreams you walk out with,” strip club owner Justice Charlier (Nicole Tuttle) tells our heroine Sherrie Christian (Casey Elizabeth).
In between party hard. It’s hard to believe the audience will have better time than the cast, and that includes the band – Janine Baughman, director and keyboards, Clint Fox, bass, Ryan Eckhardt and Tom Gorman, guitars, and Tom Montgomery, percussion.
When we meet Sherrie she’s newly arrived from her straitlaced Midwestern home with high hopes for a career in movies. There’s that cute meet with Drew (Nick Rudnicki), a bartender at the Bourbon Club, a rock bar or some repute. His dream is to be on the stage.
All this plays out across a wild scene with the Bourbon Club at its heart.
When Sherrie’s first steps into the bar she observes: “It even smells like rock… and urine.”
That scene is threatened by the arrival of a German developer Hertz Klineman (Lane Hakel) with his son Franz (Adam Lenhart). Klineman has a plan to bulldoze the street including the Bourbon for upscale development.
The bar’s owner Dennis Dupree (Matthew Badyna) vows to fight. Somehow he believes hosting a big show would do that. He convinces glam star Stacee Jaxx to hold his farewell concert with his band Arsenal at the club.
He gets unbidden assistance from urban planner Regina Koontz (Emily Meyerson), who abandons her job with the city to lead protests against the development.
Complications ensue.
Everyone in the cast throws themselves into sending up these cartoon characters. And lest the audience starts thinking about any of this, our “dramatic conjurer” Drew steps in to set them straight. Don’t think. Revel in the raunchy nonsense.
There is an evil businessman to thwart and several pairs of lovers to unite, and all this must be accomplished before the cast delivers a rousing version of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” to close the show.
Fans of the era and the music or just carefree theater can don their leopard-print pants and join the fun.
