The Outsiders Review – ’60s-set Classic Makes For A Solid, If Unspectacular, Broadway Musical

Bernard B Jacobs Theatre, New York

SE Hinton’s novel, which was adapted by Francis Ford Coppola for film, makes for a competent yet forgettable stage show

If Broadway must, for the same risk-averse pressures as Hollywood, keep rummaging through the library for more and more past touchstones to adapt, it could do worse than The Outsiders. SE Hinton’s seminal young adult novel has been a staple of middle and high school English classes for more than half a century for a reason. Though its once cutting-edge content, controversial for 1967 – violence, addiction, depression, realist descriptions of socio-economic struggle, endless cigarettes – no longer feel risqué in 2024, the novel bottled a certain timeless teenage angst. Hinton’s book, written when she was just 16 and published when she was a freshman in college, has long connected with young audiences also feeling disenfranchised, ostracized, doubted or just lost in a churn of emotion.

The Broadway musical version, with a book by Adam Rapp and Justin Levine, tries very earnestly to tap the vein of uncut yearning and pent-up frustration, with a light touch of Americana sound and a heavy emphasis on small-town dreams. Everyone involved, including executive producer Angelina Jolie, seems to be approaching the project in good faith to the legacy of the original (and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film), with genuine curiosity in wringing something new (and lyrical) out of these repressed teenagers and now old-timey slang. (Jolie reportedly got involved on the recommendation of her 15-year-old daughter Vivienne, who saw the musical in its first outing at the La Jolla Playhouse.) The production is the platonic ideal of a retro classic rebooted for Broadway, broadly appealing to audiences young and old (my showing was split between boomers and kids) but not particularly searing, recognizable but not terribly distinct, sincere and competent yet not resounding.