Dead Poets Society Live! Jason Sudeikis stars Off Broadway

Back in 1989, I was the exact target audience for Dead Poets Society: fresh out of high school, drunk on art and beauty, still resentful of overbearing, conformist parents (we were all MTV-weaned rebels). So of course I adored Robin Williams cracking jokes with his preppy students, turning them on to Walt Whitman and the liberating joy of a barbaric yawp. Twenty-seven years later, am I still the perfect demo? Let’s just say Classic Stage Company’s earnest but flat-footed adaptation inspires thoughts of Netflix streaming more than leaping up on one’s desk to cry, “O Captain! My Captain!”

That stirring Spartacus-like moment at the end of the film is re-created here, but instead of wooden desks, the impassioned students mount stacks of books to show support for the unfairly dismissed John Keating (Jason Sudeikis). In the film, Maurice Jarre’s swelling music combined with low camera angles made the scene instantly iconic. Here, the effect is merely plucky and well-intentioned.