Tommy: The Musical

Ray Olson

Musical librettos just keep getting bigger and more expensive. The last few Lloyd Webber opuses have been extraordinarily padded "with" press-agent prose and murky production stills and "in" price. The theatrical expansion of the Who's late-1960s rock opera about a traumatized, apparently "deaf, dumb, and blind kid" who yet becomes a "Pinball Wizard" sees the Lloyd Webbers and raises them. The pictures are profuser and clearer; there are swatches of prose fore, twixt, and aft "Tommy"'s three acts that are not mere puffery; the layout is of artbook quality; and look at that price tag. In addition to better, there's more: rehearsal stills and little half-page remarks by the director, the dramaturge, a cast member, etc.; and a CD-in-pasted-pocket of composer Townshend singing the one song new to the stage production. It's a pretty snazzy package that, face it, no musical theater collection should be without.