Brotherhood, bruises and a rumble worth hearing

This review by longtime Charlotte arts critic Lawrence Toppman was published by The Charlotte Ledger on February 4, 2026. You can find out more about The Charlotte Ledger’s commitment to smart local news and information and sign up for our newsletter for free here. Ledger subscribers can add the Toppman on the Arts newsletter on their “My Account” page.

by Lawrence Toppman

What was the last musical you saw without a major female character or traditional romance of any kind? How about the last musical — heck, any musical — set entirely in Tulsa, Okla.? Or one taken from a film that significantly expands upon and improves the screen version? You have your chance this week at Belk Theater, where “The Outsiders” has come on its national tour after winning the 2024 Tony for best musical.

I haven’t read the S.E. Hinton novel from 1967, the year when the show is set, and I’m not a fan of the abbreviated 1983 film version, a hodgepodge of all the good-looking male heartthrobs Francis Ford Coppola could cram into 91 screen minutes. But the musical resonated with me, from its opening “This is who we are” anthem to its more intimate closing reflection about whom we ought to be.

The Broadway version also won Tonys for Danya Taymor’s endlessly creative direction, and the lighting and sound designs that frighteningly, mysteriously and occasionally tenderly complement her vision. All of those translate effectively to the tour, coming together most powerfully in a rumble full of clever visual and auditory tricks. (The choreography by Rick and Jeff Kuperman helps, too; it never looks like traditional dance “fighting.”)

Hinton wrote the novel in her late teens, basing it on two gangs: the Greasers and the Socs, pronounced “sosh-es,” who actually squared off at her high school. The show keeps a lot of her input intact, from the design on the show curtain (which replicates the cover of the original hardback edition) to the crucial use of Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” The theme of that poem, the transitory nature of youth and beauty and the sad inevitability of accepting that fact, underpins “The Outsiders.”

Adam Rapp and Justin Levine, who wrote the book of the musical, have stepped beyond the usual boundaries for shows about warring factions. There’s no attempt, as in “West Side Story,” to explore the viewpoints of both sides: The Greasers are unfailingly sympathetic, the Socs (with one minor exception) rich, vicious and aggressive snobs. Rapp and Levine made one major change from the source material, softening the terrible fate of one character to imbue him with self-destructive nobility.

That minor exception, a Soc named Cherry Valance (Emma Hearn), has a brief non-physical friendship with a greaser dubbed Ponyboy (Nolan White), the orphaned narrator of the show. She explains to him that rich people have problems, too, such as her alcoholic father, but their abbreviated encounter mostly sparks more trouble between the rival factions.

Ponyboy’s real relationships are all male, from his admiration for troubled Greaser leader Dallas (Tyler Jordan Wesley) to his frequent quarrels with older brother Darrel (Travis Roy Rogers), an ex-Greaser who dropped out of college to run his family after the parents’ death. Ponyboy confides occasionally in his easygoing middle brother Sodapop (Corbin Drew Ross) but feels closest to classmate Johnny (Bonale Fambrini).

Johnny’s effectively an orphan — his unseen parents fight constantly and neglect him — and shares Ponyboy’s unformed dreams of escape, if not his promising academic future. They also share the show’s most optimistic number, “Stay Gold,” as they muse upon the prospect of finding happiness while remaining true to yourself.

The music by Levine and Jamestown Revival (the duo of Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance) serves each mood well, though pedestrian lyrics hamper many of the songs. Characters try to imagine “Someplace where we can be free/Free to decide who we want to be.” Cherry tells Ponyboy “You only see the world one way/It’s black and white but never gray.”

Impassioned performances by the unanimously strong-voiced cast get us past these lyric pitfalls. Wesley registers powerfully as the young man who’s both the strongest and weakest of the Greasers, and Rogers modulates rage with concern as Darrel. Fambrini and Hearn have appealing personalities in their underwritten roles, and White made me believe he might really be a high school sophomore grappling with love, literature and loyalties in a meaningful way for the first time.

“The Outsiders” runs through Feb. 8 at Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

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Lawrence Toppman covered the arts for 40 years at The Charlotte Observer before retiring in 2020. Now, he’s back in the critic’s chair for the Charlotte Ledger — look for his reviews several times each month in the Charlotte Ledger.

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