The Outsiders at the Eccles

Alienation is one of my favorite themes in literature so The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton had a big influence on me as an adolescent (I've always been drawn to tragedies). I went to see the stage adaptation last night at the Eccles and I loved everything about it (even though it made me cry at the end). It is a coming of age story set in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1967. Fourteen-year-old Ponyboy Curtis (Christian Arredondo) is a member of the working-class "Greasers" who escalates an ongoing conflict with the upper-middle-class "Socs" when he talks to their leader's girlfriend Cherry Valance (Emma Hearn) at the drive-in. His brothers Sodapop (Brendan Dallaire) and Darrel (Travis Roy Rogers), who now acts as the head of the household after the death of their parents, worry about the influence that Dallas Winston (Anthony Garcia), the leader of the gang, has on him. After a tragic altercation with the Socs, Dally advises Ponyboy and his best friend Johnny Cade (Bonale Fambrini) to go into hiding but this leads to even more tragedy. Ponyboy eventually realizes that he must rise above the gang mentality to search for what is good in the world. I love the folk-rock music by Jamestown Revival and Justin Levine and, while every song really affected me, my favorites were "Great Expectations," "Run Run Brother" (this gave me goosebumps), "Little Brother" (this made me cry), and "Stay Gold" (this made me cry even harder). The performances are absolutely amazing. There is not a weak link in the entire cast and everyone had a moment that blew me away but Arrendondo and Garcia are both next level. Arrendondo has a beautiful voice and Ponyboy's vulnerability and frustration are palpable as he tries to find his place in the world, especially in the aforementioned "Great Expectations" because it is filled with so much yearning, and Garcia commands the stage with a powerful performance as the leader of the gang which then makes his emotional rendition of "Little Brother" all the more heartbreaking. The set is very eye-catching with items that you might find in a junkyard, such as boards, tires, a jungle gym, and a broken down car, which are then configured and reconfigured into various locations (I particularly loved how these items become a maze that Ponyboy and Johnny have to navigate as they escape in "Run Brother Run"). The staging is incredibly dynamic and I loved all of the projections used because they are visually stunning. The back wall resembles the screen at a drive-in movie on which scenes from Cool Hand Luke are shown and then it becomes an abandoned church during the second act and the fire sequences, which use light and shadow to great effect, are spectacular. The choreography is exhilarating and the final rumble, especially, is absolutely thrilling with athletic leaps and jumps as the gang members push and pull against each other in the rain (I kept going back and forth on whether it was actually raining and a synchronized sequence in which everyone flips their hair proved that it was). It is one of the coolest bits of stagecraft I have seen! Finally, I was impressed with the high contrast lighting, especially a scene in which a police officer uses a flashlight in an interrogation and then turns it towards the audience. I loved this show so much and I highly recommend getting a ticket (go here) for one of the remaining performances through November 15.