A REVOLUTION LOST IN THE (BEAUTIFUL) NOISE

Revolution(s) is the first Owen Theatre production of Goodman’s centennial celebration. With a book by Zayd Ayers Dohrn and music and lyrics by multiple Grammy winning, rap-metal legend Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave), the musical examines the effects of transgenerational economic and racial injustice in modern day America.

The show opens with the interior of an industrial warehouse. Derek McLane’s set is stark, cold, and entirely apropos to the music. Multiple steel mezzanines provide different performance areas; the band is secreted under one of them in the back. The backdrop is a massive paned window that throughout the show will be used as a screen for the place and time, snippets of lyrics, and a stunning view of the Chicago skyline; Andres Fiz and Rasean Davonté Johnson’s projections do a lot of heavy lifting in this show.

It is 2016, on the South Side of Chicago and Hampton, a military recruit calls his mother Emma from a payphone to let her know he’s back in the city. But before he comes home, there are things he must do. Concerned about her son’s intentions, Emma sends his fraternal twin Ernie out to look for him and guide him back home. It’s a nice bit of place-setting. Within a few minutes of the opening, the main characters have been separated (Hampton and Ernie’s father, Leon, is in prison, for reasons that are revealed later in the show). The show splits into three storylines: Hampton and Ernie meet up with their musician friends and run afoul of the police; Leon composes a memoir of sorts in his jail cell; and in a flashback we see how Leon and Emma meet and the circumstances that lead them to their current state of affairs.

Director Steve H. Broadnax III does a fine job keeping all these balls in the air. The show is propulsive, fast-paced, and LOUD, in keeping with the music. He is aided immensely by a terrific cast, equally adept as actors as they are singers and performers, and a fantastic score. That Tom Morello would compose brilliant songs with sharp incisive lyrics would surprise no one, but the tunefulness of his melodies—frequently overwhelmed by the metal orchestrations on his albums—probably would. To that point, the sound design of the show could use a bit of tweaking. As powerful as the singers are they are not infrequently overwhelmed by the music. This isn’t a traditional musical in any sense, but we still need to hear the lyrics, especially when the lyrics are so damn good. The songs don’t really drive the story here; they are a call to action. A demand for revolution.

But a revolution against what in particular? Dohrn’s book is the weakest element of the show by far. It hits on so many issues that it loses focus. There’s racial bullying, military PTSD, veteran’s mental health, immigration enforcement, tyrannical economic practices, the industrial prison complex, and I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. All these issues are vital, but they also deserve to be examined on their own without having to jostle for attention. In laundry-listing injustices, the show inadvertently dilutes their impact.

The characters don’t fare much better. Except for Leon—magnificently played by Al’Jaleel McGhee in a riveting performance—the other characters are barely sketched out. The women fare the worst; Jackie Burns as Emma, the school teacher turned revolutionary, is fantastic, but the part as written is barely more than a collection of clichés; that it even approaches complexity is because of her fierce performance and the terrific songs handed to her. Even worse off is Alysia Velez, whose Lucia is just one cliché–singular, and Jakeim Hart’s Ernie who remains an enigma throughout. Hart gives a beautifully modulated, underplayed performance, but almost nothing about Ernie registers. His homosexuality, indicated during a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment (literally: I saw it, my companion clearly blinked and did not) and never referenced again, is an almost insulting afterthought. And poor Hampton (a soulful Aaron James Mckenzie) isn’t a character so much as a plot device, getting us from point A to point B in the script.

I’m not sure how this would play to people who aren’t fans of Morello’s past work or his musical genre—witness the slightly stunned elderly couples leaving about fifteen minutes into the show—but I thought the music and lyrics were spectacular. The cast is uniformly great. The direction is superb. The technicals (that sound-mixing issue notwithstanding) are mostly on point. As a concert production, Morello’s cri de coeur against social and racial injustice would be a rousing, pulsating success. As a musical, there’s a bit more work to be done.

And only Tom Morello, a proud anarchist and non-sectarian socialist, could compose a gorgeous lullaby with the refrain “Rise to Power” and get away with it.

photos by Brett Beiner

Revolution(s)
Goodman Theatre’s Owen Theatre, 170 North Dearborn
ends on November 16, 2025 EXTENDED to November 22, 2025
for tickets, call 312.443.3800 or visit Goodman Theatre

for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago