![\"Brendan](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iannelli.us\/diderot\/files\/2015\/09\/Rock-of-Ages-Modern-Media-danscape-283-of-586.jpeg?resize=700%2C467\")
Brendan Brady stars in Rock of Ages<\/em> at The Modern CdA. Photo: Dan Baumer<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n Rock of Ages<\/em>, a musical that\u2019s now been around for as long as we were forced\u00a0to endure the Eighties, is a suitably egregious parody of an egregious decade. As narrator Lonny Barnett describes it in one of the show’s many meta\u00a0exchanges, it can be reduced to a collection of \u201cpoop jokes and Whitesnake songs\u201d. And not only do\u00a0the audience remain in their seats after\u00a0this candid and unflattering admission, they belly laugh at their own complicity.<\/p>\n And therein lies its charm. In mining some of the worst qualities of its decade, Rock of Ages<\/em> actually transcends the worst qualities of its genre.\u00a0It stamps out the usual cloying superficiality\u00a0of jukebox musicals with a smirk, as though grinding the smoldering butt of a Camel under the heel of a steel-toed\u00a0cowboy\u00a0boot. If you’ve sat through a production like\u00a0Jersey Boys<\/a><\/em> and wept at its brightly lit bread-and-circus inanity, Rock of Ages<\/em>\u00a0is at least refreshingly self-aware\u00a0enough to mock\u00a0the frail man operating\u00a0behind its own curtain.<\/p>\n In this season opener and West Coast premiere\u00a0at The Modern Coeur d’Alene, Brendan Brady (Into the Woods<\/a><\/em>, Sweeney Todd<\/a><\/em>, Spring Awakening<\/a><\/em>) is Drew Boley, a wannabe rockstar\u00a0working as a very unglamorous factotum in The Bourbon Room, a past-its-prime dive bar on Hollywood’s\u00a0Sunset Strip owned by equally past-his-prime Dennis Dupree (Doug Dawson). When German developers\u00a0Hertz and Franz (Shawn Hunt, Nick Bailey) propose demolishing the entire strip to construct a\u00a0paean to\u00a0cleanliness and efficiency,\u00a0Drew\u00a0gets his chance to prove\u00a0his mettle\u2014or rather, metal\u2014to label\u00a0scouts\u00a0as well as ingenue\u00a0Sherrie Christian (Quinn Vaira) when he’s allowed to\u00a0open for Stacee Jaxx (Christopher Sweet), frontman for the popular band Arsenal, at a club-saving benefit concert. Starstruck by Stacee and fed up\u00a0with\u00a0Drew’s\u00a0lack of overtures, Sherrie makes some naive yet libertine moves\u00a0that land her in a “gentleman’s club” owned by\u00a0Justice Charlier (Jesi Be). In act two, this all has to get resolved using some ex machina plot devices that aren’t too far removed from\u00a0Wayne’s World<\/em><\/a> (1992).<\/p>\n Lonny, played here with seedy, mullet-sporting swagger by Daniel McKeever (God of Carnage<\/a><\/em>, The Producers<\/a><\/em>), keeps the events moving at a steady clip by verbally bridging a handful of abrupt leaps in location and time. The music, which features classic earworms\u00a0by Twisted Sister, Starship, Poison, Mr. Big, Foreigner, Bon Jovi, Europe, Journey and, yes, Whitesnake, is interwoven\u00a0diegetically, so that the songs\u00a0rarely feel like they’ve been clumsily bolted on to an existing framework. As a matter of fact, Rock of Ages<\/em>\u00a0works more like a connect-the-dots exercise\u00a0in which the plot is a line drawn between\u00a0the hits’\u00a0natural and inevitable waypoints.<\/p>\n The cast of Rock of Ages<\/em> at The Modern CdA. Photo: Dan Baumer<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n There are a couple of\u00a0medleys (e.g.,\u00a0“More Than Words\/To Be with You\/Heaven”) plus\u00a0gender swaps between the original vocals and the show’s renditions for the sake of variety as well as\u00a0plot; for the most part, the songs get straightforward treatment by the four-piece band under Zack Baker, with enough power chords and two-hand tapping to appease\u00a0casual\u00a0metalheads. One of the few disappointments is that some of the songs lose their bite in translation. The anthemic “We’re Not Gonna Take It<\/a>” as sung by Regina (Aubree Peterson) lacks Dee Snider’s growl and comes across as glibly feisty rather than fierce. In Night Ranger\u2019s \u201cSister Christian<\/a>,\u201d the run-up\u00a0to the chorus should build with the pounding of the toms and unleash its\u00a0wallop\u00a0the moment\u00a0the rhythm guitar chugs along with “Motorin'”. That mini-catharsis is what makes the song. Here it’s more like a quaint group singalong.<\/p>\n Angela Pierson’s choreography suits the period, with plenty of shoulder thrusts, rounded fishnet leg kicks and fist pumps, not to mention slinky intimate numbers that come as close to\u00a0softcore as you’ll see on a local stage. In fittingly girl-on-a-sportscar-hood<\/a> fashion, Vaira writhes her way through the bulk of these in a bra top and denim\u00a0miniskirt without a trace of awkwardness. It’s a far cry from her previous gig with VeggieTales. She brings\u00a0that same unself-consciousness to her relationship with Drew for one of the most credible stage romances I’ve seen \u2014 all the more remarkable given\u00a0Lonny’s knowing nods to the audience\u00a0that it’s all a cheap dramatic contrivance.<\/p>\n Vaira is a standout among standouts. The primary\u00a0casting in this production of Rock of Ages<\/em> is as close to flawless as you can get, with Sweet, Dawson and McKeever playing parts\u00a0to which they’re physically and vocally suited with uncanny accuracy. Brady has generally\u00a0excelled in roles that use\u00a0his\u00a0fair-haired\u00a0boyishness to accentuate his character’s\u00a0struggle to be taken seriously, and that’s the case here too. The only caveat is that he and Vaira, both pale blondes with an air of guilelessness, can occasionally take on a brother-sister dynamic that threatens their otherwise persuasive\u00a0stage romance.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iannelli.us\/diderot\/files\/2015\/09\/Rock-of-Ages-Modern-Media-danscape-373-of-586.jpeg?resize=700%2C466\")