Review | ‘Outsiders’ gets lost in the rumble

However, the book (by playwright Adam Rapp and Justine Levine), which stays dutifully true to the novel, has difficulty reconciling bursts of excitement with the plotting and character details of the novel, with Brody Grant (who looks far too mature to be playing the sensitive 14-year-old Ponyboy Curtis) slowly narrating exposition to the audience and sentimental solos that stop the show in its tracks. By act two, the show felt like a mechanical procession of plot progression and teen melodrama.