The Magazine of St Aloysius' College • 'Men for Others' • Issue XLVII ...

music
Anatomy of a Musical 2008 -
Tommy
St Aloysius’ College has a proud tradition of presenting
superb musical theatre. On May 15, 16 and 17 of
this year that tradition continued with a season of the
1970s rock opera hit, Tommy. The choice of a musical which
is a suitable vehicle for high school boys and girls in the
21st Century can be quite problematical. The introduction
to the Tommy programme annotations by the Director, Mr
Peter Gough summarises his own amazing journey with this
iconic production and sheds light on the incarnation of the
work and the motivation behind the decision to stage this
particular work at St Aloysius’ College.
The Punks perform ’Pinball Wizard‘.
as drawing heavily on the writings and life of Meher
Baba, the Tommy story was interwoven with allusions to
and references drawn from Christianity, Eastern esoteric
philosophy and twentieth century popular culture. Obvious
reference points were the life of Helen Keller, the 1926
scandal of controversial American evangelist Amie Semple
McPherson, the pop star phenomenon in which The Who
themselves were immersed, and of course, pinball.
Daniel Verschuer as Young Tommy.
My amazing journey with Tommy began after I read a
1969 interview with Pete Townsend guitarist and principal
songwriter for “The Who” in Rolling Stone magazine.
The concept album (or first Rock Opera as some people
mistakenly referred to it) was strongly influenced by his
rejection of drugs and his consequent burgeoning interest
in spirituality and mysticism. This interest had blossomed
when he was introduced to the life and teachings of
Meher Baba by artist Mike McInnerney, who went on to
do the famous cover illustrations for the Album. As well
Lauren Curtin, Peter Slaven and Harry Power.
Tommy is mostly the work of Pete Townsend, with only
three songs by the other band members. Eyesight to the
Blind had already been written by Sonny Boy Williamson.
Ironically, the signature tune Pinball Wizard and the now
famous pinball plot device were devised on the spot and
purely for the sake of expediency. The band was very much
in debt, partly because at each performance Pete Townsend
would smash his guitar and amplifier on stage and Keith
Moon, the drummer, would destroy his drum kit.
After the album’s release The Who performed excerpts
at the 1969 Woodstock Rock Festival before 250,000
people and for the next two years they toured the world
(except Australia) giving Tommy concerts, with Roger Daltry
as Tommy and Pete Townsend as the narrator.
In 1972, producer Lou Reizner began work on a new
a lavish new all-star orchestral production of Tommy. It was
one of the first rock music projects to use a full symphony
orchestra as an integral part of the arrangement and
presented a fuller realisation of the characters with an allstar
cast in the various roles. This orchestral version was very
successful and is well-remembered for its lavish cover, which
was at the time the most elaborate album package ever
created. I got to see that concert, along with 30,000 other
people, on a stage designed to look like a pinball machine,
at Randwick racecourse on April 1st, 1973.
In 1975, iconoclastic British film director Ken Russell
made his controversial film version of Tommy. Townshend
reworked both the storyline and the music for the film
version. The major plot changes were the shifting of the
original time forward of the story line from the end of World
War One to the end of World War Two.
For those of us who were lucky enough to see this film
St Aloysius’ College
A Jesuit School for Boys _ Founded 1879
aloysiad / page 32