BY KATIE PECORA ’22
On Saturday, Feb. 2, Amherst College hosted a Five College production of “American Idiot,” a rock-opera based on the well-known 2004 Green Day album.
The album was written in the George W. Bush era of American politics and was the band’s way of expressing their dissenting opinions.
The show followed three main characters: Johnny, Tunny and Will. Johnny is an opioid addict who is trying to make it big as a musician, Tunny is a dead-beat who ended up joining the military and Will stayed in their hometown with his pregnant girlfriend, giving up on his own musical dreams.
The Amherst production transferred these themes to the current political climate, casting Tunny and St. Jimmy as girls, which made the show “that much gayer” as Gina Pasciuto ’23, who played Uncle Sam, described it.
Hannah Dube ’22, who played Alysha, said she felt this production connected past political themes to our current climate.
“I think a lot of the political problems that are happening today are not very different from what was happening when Green Day wrote a lot of the songs,” Dube said. “I think that people are just more aware now. So in that aspect, I feel it was relatively easy to believe this could take place in modern times.”
While people were being seated, political tweets and news clips were displayed, ranging from Obama’s Tweets about gun violence, Chrissy Teigen’s joke about World War III and even Trump’s Tweets about seeing “American Idiot” on Broadway, along with Billie Joe Armstrong’s reaction.
This was followed by the first song of the show, “American Idiot,” which was a great connection to the themes of the song.
Production-wise, it was truly incredible. The set was covered in scaffolding, which the actors climbed on frequently. The talent in the cast was unbelievable, especially from Alec Fiorentino, the Amherst College student who played the role of Johnny. The most impressive part was that the show was entirely put together in one month.
Dube said that the best part of the experience was “definitely getting to know people from across the Five Colleges and making new friends.”
“American Idiot” is extremely salient in a time of such political divisiveness, and it stokes the rebellious spirit of everyone who is dissatisfied with the arrangement of our society. Amherst College did an excellent job fostering this prideful rebellion, all while putting on a captivating and rousing show. Despite the legendary status that Green Day has achieved in the past decades, their message is now as clear as ever.