OMG Stark Sands Spit On Me, Etc.

And you thought Bloodsong of Love needed a splash zone warning.

The wettest, wildest experience in theater these days is in the lottery-ticket-only first two rows of American Idiot. It’s positively… interactive. It’s also positively like riding the log flume at Great Adventure.

Over the course of the show, I was spit and sweated on. Props were thrown. I was TPd, I think. And I don’t even mean like, “Wow, look at all the spit coming out of his mouth. Some of it must surely be landing on someone in the audience.”

That’s what I said to myself during Spring Awakening, ahem Mr. Groff. (Literally, ahem.)

This is more like, “Wow there is moisture on my hand right now. And on my face. And it’s a bodily fluid from someone standing on that stage.”

Welcome to the perils of awesome seats. But such is the nature of this show, wherein no one stops moving or singing or being disenfranchised in a really projectile-type way for the entire thing. The fact that this show is continually cranked up to at least eleven is what makes it so great. Its passionate like nothing else on Broadway is passionate right now.

Part of it is about proximity, too. The seats are just insanely close to the stage. When Johnny casts away his drugs for the final time, he casts them all over your lap. The girl sitting right in front of me jumped up so quickly to applaud at the end of the show that she nearly head-butted Michael Esper, who was in the middle of his bow. He was taken aback. She was overjoyed.

My advice? Go. Put that little slip of paper in the bucket and try your chances. It’s hilarious, and not just because it might be your only shot at swapping spit with John Gallagher. It’s also the best way to enjoy this headrush of a show, if you can handle its energy, and the thousand-percent commitment of its cast.

We’ll be going again, ponchos in tow.