4 stars for a rock revival

Little Tommy Walker, that “deaf, dumb and blind child” who positive performs a imply pinball, could also be off in a quiet vibration land, however there’s nothing low-volume about “The Who’s Tommy” on Broadway.

The quaking revival of Pete Townshend’s seminal rock opera, which opened Thursday evening on the Nederlander Theater after almost three many years away, actually is an espresso martini of a present after a chamomile-tea season of musicals.

All the pieces about this exhilarating manufacturing shakes you awake and leaves you buzzed: Knockout singing, fantastically ingenious stagecraft and a star-making efficiency from 24-year-old Ali Louis Bourzgui because the Pinball Wizard that’s probably the most thrilling New York stage debut in years. 

I hope the Nederlander’s carpets are frequently vacuumed. As a result of for 2 hours and quarter-hour, my jaw grew to become all too effectively acquainted with the ground.  

Don’t lazily dismiss “Tommy” as a nostalgia journey for Child Boomers, both. Townshend’s imaginative and proudly unusual present, a few four-year-old boy who loses his senses of sight and listening to after traumatically witnessing a homicide, solely to later wind up an arcade famous person, is a perfect concoction for our creativity-starved second.

Composed again in 1969 when music was nonetheless about artwork, not algorithm, “Tommy” has the sting and originality of as we speak’s intimate gems that critics go gaga for — solely with infinitely higher tunes audiences love, resembling “Sensation, “I’m Free” and “Listening to You.”

Nonetheless, because it was additionally dreamt up by a rocker who was accustomed to taking part in adoring stadiums, the ensuing musical is on the dazzling scale that ticket-buyers look to Broadway to supply. 

Townshend’s sprawling story calls for the ambition and fastidious element of director Des McAnuff, who first staged “Tommy” on Broadway in 1993 and in addition co-wrote the ebook. There’s not a second of lifeless air in his newest go-round, which started on the Goodman Theater in Chicago.

Set in World Warfare II-era Britain (and in addition now in a extra nebulous “previous” and “future”), Tommy turbulently travels from four-years-old to 10 — after which to an much more discombobulating maturity, being wronged all alongside the way in which. 

Looking for a treatment for his or her son, his mum (Alison Luff) and pop (Adam Jacobs) cart the boy off to docs and a last-ditch-effort Acid Queen (Christina Sajous). He’s abused by his depraved Uncle Ernie (John Ambrosino, an ideal creep) and will get bullied by Cousin Kevin (Bobby Conte).

Jacobs and Luff, with hovering voices, give layered portrayals of loving however flawed mother and father.

And a few distinctive baby actors play Tommy in his torturous youthful years. The character stares blank-faced as he’s moved balletically via house by troubled adults who make each determination for him, for higher or worse.

Tommy’s life sucks, and he’s soothingly watched over by his “see me, really feel me, contact me, heal me” older self (Bourzgui) in virtually “it will get higher” fantasy sequences.

The state of affairs briefly improves when he first will get his supple wrists on his favourite sport of metallic balls and levers — and turns into world famend. 

In a spotlight, the trio of Conte, Mark Mitrano and Jeremiah Alsop mesmerizingly wail “Pinball Wizard” and threaten the structural integrity of a 103-year-old theater, with the assistance of sound designer Gareth Owen. So forceful, their track is.

In fact, fame has its pitfalls, too, and now it’s Tommy’s youthful iterations who return to the stage as visions to assist him amid grown-up pressures — resembling changing into a cult chief with crazed followers like Sally Simpson (Haley Gustafson).

That all of us have an inside grownup and an inside baby is a deeply relatable thought, even in a cuckoosical resembling this one.

David Korins’ set of spaceship white-neon frames is extra streamlined than previous “Tommy’s,” however it’s used so deftly by McAnuff, lighting designer Amanda Zieve and choreographer Lorin Latarro to color lush and kaleidoscopic stage footage.

Most wouldn’t name this musical a dance present, however Lotarro’s thrilling choreography makes a case for that class. The strikes are wide-ranging — from the foxtrot to the robotic — and the exceptional ensemble dons police helmets, stethoscopes, church robes and dystopian metallic masks as they inhabit a dizzying variety of never-still roles. 

Incredible as your complete forged is, sufficient can’t be stated of Bourzgui.

The actor just isn’t solely a outstanding time-machine discover for a trippy sixties basic, with harmful eyes like these of Malcolm McDowell’s Alex DeLarge in “A Clockwork Orange.”

He’s additionally acquired the glam aura of David Bowie and an entirely distinctive baritone that simply shifts from delicate to commanding. And, I think, from rock operas to conventional musical theater as effectively.

After the good Michael Cerveris made his Broadway debut as Tommy in 1993, he went onto play towering roles resembling Hedwig, Sweeney Todd, John Wilkes Sales space in “Assassins” and “Peron” in “Evita,” whereas originating memorable roles in new musicals like “Enjoyable House” and “Titanic.”

That’s the type of “wonderful journey” I predict for Bourzgui.