Playwright: Robert Morris, Steven Morris, Joe Shane (music & lyrics); Matte O'Brien (book). At: Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted. Tickets: 321-988-8000; www.whitenoise.com; $54.50-$74.50. Runs through: June 5
In his debut as director, veteran choreographer Sergio Trujillo has assembled a smashing company and plugged them into a mega-watt generator for 100 minutes of slam-bang, high-tech, rock-concert, multimedia, never-take-a-breath wizardry. White Noise looks good, sounds good and packs a punch. That will be enough for most folks, who won't realize that White Noise substitutes in-your-face attitude for actual depth.
The Broadway-bound show is inspired by real-life white supremacist rockers Prussian Blue, a band built around two blond-haired sisters that flourished in a niche market for about six years. White Noise takes the notion of the sisters, here named Eva (Mackenzie Mauzy) and Eden (Emily Padgett), adds neo-Nazi brother Duke (Patrick Murney) and puts them under contract to amoral and cynical producer Max (Douglas Sills) who promotes them into the rock music mainstream.
The show opens with something like a rock version of "Springtime for Hitler" from The Producers, and within minutes the neo-nazi siblings are singing "Welcome to Auschwitz." It seems like satire, a hideous "what if" nightmare. But the show quickly turns earnest as the producer also signs musically-mainstream Black twins Dion (Wallace Smith) and Tyler (Rodney Hicks) and repackages themagainst their judgmentas a thug hip-hop act. Their song, "Nigger Gonna' Shoot the Whiteboy," is as offensive as anything the skinheads sing. Predictably, the two bands clash in a violent outcome.
The show wants to indict popular taste and ignorance, and the ability of mass marketing to moldor disguisemessages. However, the focus is entirely on the machinations of the music biz rather than on public taste or even the conflicted artists, as characterization, exposition and even plausibility are left on the floor in favor of high energy and presentational pizzazz. For example, gifted and maybe-Jewish songwriter Jake (Eric William Morris) agrees to write hits for both groups. Not credible.
We're given only the flimsiest reasons why Eva, Eden and Duke are white supremacists. Duke is a one-note character whose final action is telegraphed miles away. Max also is a one-note character, despite the considerable strength of Sills's sharp performance. We're told Jake and Eden are in love but we never see it, they never have a love song and it doesn't impact the story. There's a meaningless and offensive flaming gay character (an influential rock blogger).
Will any of this matter? Probably not. Traditional Broadway audiences will not like White Noise, fans of rock musicals such as American Idiot probably will, and actual rockers will think it's real, which is scary. They won't notice that most of the well-structured songs by Robert Morris, Steven Morris and Joe Shane do traditional Broadway story-and-character work. Everyone will like the show-stoppers "Mondays Suck" for the neo-nazis and "Country Hip-Hop" for the Brothas.