I went and saw Rock of Ages this evening. I had seen the play when it was in San Francisco when it was touring so I knew what I was going to get. I have to say I did like the play a little bit better than the movie as the story was fuller. It had more characters that interacted with the main ones. I also felt that the ending of the play was more realistic. But then again the play ending was more "grim" if you will. The movie was a "happier" ending.
Spoilers to follow:
The scenario is this:
Sherrie takes the bus to Los Angeles, and meets Drew when her precious rock LPs are stolen. Drew works behind the bar at the famous Bourbon club, and Drew gets Sherrie a job there too. Drew and Sherrie are both singers; they become close, and Sherrie helps Drew to overcome his stage fright.
The club is in dire financial straits and is relying on a gig by the enigmatic and unreliable rock god Stacie Jaxx and his band Arsenal to save them. When the opening act pulls out, Drew and his band get to open the show instead. A fellow waitress warns Sherrie that, once Drew gets into the spotlight, he'll forget about her.
Meanwhile Stacie Jaxx is being interviewed for Rolling Stone magazine by a pretty reporter, Constance Sack. He eventually instructs everyone else to leave, and tells her of his existential angst and the loneliness of sex without love. Her resistance to his rock god charm breaks down; she tells him she can meet his needs, and they engage in frantic sexual activity on the pool table.
Sherrie is instructed to bring a bottle of whisky to Jaxx. Through a misunderstanding, Drew thinks Jaxx and Sherrie made love, and when Drew comes off stage he rejects Sherrie.
Their lives take different courses; Sherrie quits the Bourbon, and desperate for money, she tries several jobs before ending up in a pole dancing lounge -- first as a waitress and then finally as a dancer. Drew is signed by Jaxx' manager, but when PR guys reject rock music as outdated, he is persuaded to join a boy band instead. He and Sherrie sing 'Here I go again on my own'; Jaxx too is shown lying in bed with a random female, thinking of someone else.
Drew and Sherrie finally meet again. The misunderstanding is cleared up, and then Drew finds Sherrie's stolen records for sale. He purchases them, returns them to her, and she attends his gig that night -- his boy band are opening for Stacie Jaxx in the Bourbon club. The boy band are booed off, and instead Drew and Sherrie duet on the song that he wrote for her. The song is a great success and catches the attention of Jaxx, who has been dramatically re-united with Constance. Jaxx adopts the song for his mega-band with Drew and Sherrie singing with him on stadium stages.
There is also a subsidiary plot in which Patricia Whitmore, the wife of the new mayor, rallies do-gooders to clean up The Strip by shutting down the Bourbon club and Stacie Jaxx in particular. However, it gradually emerges that she is an ex-Jaxx groupie whose passion against him is that of a woman scorned. Her humiliation is complete when Lonny from the Bourbon club produces an old LP with a picture of her as a groupie inside it. She sneaks into Jaxx' final show dressed in sexy black leather and dark glasses.
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1336608/synopsis)
The play has Stacee Jaxx having sex with Sherri where as the movie has him almost getting it on with a Rolling Stone's reporter. This changes the reasons for some of the characters motivation. Also the Bourbon Room is threatened by a developer in the play and the city planner is fighting to keep the Bourbon Room alive verses in the movie it is the Mayor and his wife threatening to "clean up the city of the it's filth," as well as revenge for a jilted love affair.
In the film Jaxx doesn't end up a washed-up has-been and the couple ends up as a singing duo, Von Colt, verses a happy couple living a different dream in the valley. Everyone has their dreams renewed. It's a little on the "Gosh golly geee" end of movies for me as really not everyone has to have a superhappy ending but they did in this one. I am glad they left in the club owner finding happiness with his manager, both men. And the singing was really well done. I think having the couple make it as singers was kinda sweet. But again I was expecting a similar message to the play which was " On The Strip, sometimes the dreams with which you enter are not always the dreams with which you leave, but they still rock"
Links:
Rock of Ages Play Website: http://www.rockofagesmusical.com/broadway.php
Rock of Ages Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_of_Ages_(musical)
Rock of Ages IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1336608/
Rock of Ages Trailer: http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi956080153/
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