On Saturday, I watched "American Idiot," a musical based on the album of the same name by American pop punk band Green Day. The set was simple, consisting mostly of all wall spray painted with graffiti and political imagery that would shift into the American flag if the lights are shown on it just right.
The ensemble was small, and at times there was microphone trouble. The majority of the costumes were little more than tight jeans or distressed leggings and a band tee shirt. Yet, because of its simplicity, the theater and actors gave off an energy that was very punk rock, minimalistic and aggressive at once. The design gave room for the story to breathe and take up a life of its own in the imagination of the audience.
The play follows Johnny, Will, and Tunny as they try to escape their mediocre lives. Johnny creates an alter ego that plunges him into drug addiction and causes him to lose the love of hs life. Will gets his girlfriend pregnant and shirks his responsibilities as a father through alcoholism. Tunny enlists in the army and gets sent to a hospital after his service leads to injury.
Their choices result in harsh, bleak realities as they discover how nuanced the American dream really is. The play ends with each character growing up and accepting life in its unfairness, ultimately finding hope and the will to carry on.
Many of the moments in the play are shocking. Johnny's girlfriend overdoses on heroin, and the audience can only watch in horror as she writhes in Johnny's arms. Much of the choreography has blatantly sexual themes, and Johnny's alter-ego makes his exit by slitting his throat onstage. Yet, beneath the shock value, or in many ways because of it, American Idiot is able to boldly declare the American dream obsolete and realistically show how our choices have consequences.
American Idiot is not content to have a "happily ever after" moment. It does not want to leave the audience feeling warm and fuzzy when the actors take their last bows. It challenges the viewer to recognize how trapped we all really are, and how in many ways there is no escape.
American Idiot is a show aimed at teaching awareness. It isn't a call to resist, as its punk rock roots would suggest, nor is it a call to find a better way to pursue happiness than the characters on stage do. It is simply an honest reflection of the way the world operates, with each of us playing the game until we die.
Fighting back is useless because the game always wins.
Once we can accept that, we can find hope for tomorrow, not that tomorrow will be grandly better than today, but that we will be one step closer to purpose. Life sucks, and it will not magically stop sucking one day. But it is our choice whether to allow ourselves to be defeated by it or to find something to invest in and be happy.
The world is a vast and cruel place, but we don't have to be eaten alive by it if we choose not to be. The good guy doesn't win every battle, situations don't always work out how we plan them to, but this is not a cause for giving up. Rather, it should be a rallying cry to find a way to combat the misery life provides. There is always a silver lining. There is always hope.
