![]() ![]() Over time, she begins to see there’s more to the Greasers than greasy hair and vile manners. She looks past his dark side without condoning it. His girlfriend, Cherry (Piper Patterson), who is portrayed in a more generous light than in the novel, knows how dangerous he can be after a few drinks. Bob (Kevin William Paul) dresses like a college boy and acts like a sociopath. The Socs are portrayed as preppy, privileged savages. Ryan Vasquez accentuates the earnestness of this retooled characterization but unleashes a tornado of emotion when released into song. Less enthralled by his own muscles and not as eager to brawl, he is a Greaser in name only. ![]() But I appreciated the creative boldness of the songwriting.ĭarrel, Ponyboy’s eldest brother who has sacrificed his own future to keep a roof over his baby brother’s head, is a more paternal figure now. ![]() When the music is enjoined to shift the production into high gear, the ensuing reverie doesn’t always feel earned. The lyrics have a fresh charge but are sometimes overtaxed with too much narrative work. The songs work best when they give expression to the inner lives of the central characters (though the soul-searching on the periphery could use some pruning). The score has a folk-rock sound that seems completely natural to the story without locking it into a specific period. The show, based on both Hinton’s novel and Coppola’s film, lets the music by Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance) and Justin Levine guide the storytelling. The musical version of “The Outsiders,” which is having its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse, recognizes these hazards. But it’s the protagonist’s meditation on events that keeps the jam-packed tale from seeming clunky and contrived. The story is gripping, don’t get me wrong. The movie races through the plot, as though victory lies in crossing the finish line.īut the book’s strength is novelistic, which is to say it impresses itself upon us more through reflection than direct dramatization. The violence of adolescence is fresh to her, the injuries that occur don’t magically heal, and when death comes, it’s a permanent condition.Īdapting “The Outsiders” is no easy feat, as Francis Ford Coppola found out in his inert 1983 film, best remembered as a showcase for such future Hollywood megastars as Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe and Tom Cruise. Hinton, astonishingly, wrote the book when she was in high school. “The Outsiders” adds to this time-tested recipe a note of stark realism. The message of these works, according to Bettelheim, is “that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence - but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious.” ![]() Hinton’s story has the same dark enchantment that the writer Bruno Bettelheim identified in fairy tales. A respectable middle-aged man by day, I found myself on the streets with my best buddy from high school at bedtime, trying to survive a crisis that kept spiraling into an ever-more appalling disaster. Hinton’s classic young-adult novel, that my dreams started to parallel the nightmarish situation of the characters as soon as I began rereading the book. It’s a testament to the enduring power of “The Outsiders,” S.E. ![]()
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