Johnny's quest to find meaning amid the cacophony of post-9/11 America is the heart of the white-hot new Green Day musical "American Idiot." A collaboration between veteran Broadway director Michael Mayer and Billie Joe Armstrong, the Berkeley-bred punk trio's frontman, the amped-up punk opera is now in its explosive world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Based on the 2004 album of the same name, this genre-bending 95-minute show runs through Nov. 1. And if there's any justice in the world it will head east shortly thereafter.
On opening night Wednesday, the curtain edged up ever so slowly to reveal an industrial warehouse playground for the ADD-generation. Christine Jones' mind-blowing set is a colossal techno-beehive of video screens and graffiti that plunges us into instant sensory overload. A car hangs in midair. Strobe lights flash and blind. A band wails onstage. It's a kinetic mixed-media sculpture of a set design that telegraphs the experimental nature of the musical. We're not in Kansas anymore, people.
The director, who came to fame with the ground-breaking "Spring Awakening," slaps the traditional Broadway musical upside the head. Mayer stitches infectious hits like "Holiday," "21 Guns" and "Wake Me Up When September Ends" together with the never-recorded "When It's Time" into a post-modern coming-of-age tale. As compelling as it is abstract, the musical channels the grungy spirit of punk while also plucking at the heartstrings.
Intensely directed from start to finish, the relentless adrenaline rush of the piece makes its rare moments of quiet hit home that much harder. Indeed, the "Homecoming" number is so resonant, it feels like a finale when it's not. But these are merely quibbles in a 95-minute punk extravaganza that, as the song goes, explodes in your heart like a hand grenade.