The outsiders musical is the only peice of Outsiders media that is truly out of Ponyboy’s perspective and I think that’s why I love it so much.
The book is already good, completely told in the eyes of Ponyboy. We see through his eyes how each character behaves through him only. I think that’s why some fans blame Darry for the conflict happening or idolize Dally even though he is an objectively bad person or sympathize with Cherry less. It’s all through Ponyboy’s eyes, that’s how we see the characters.
The movie is less in depth but it’s where we shift away from Ponyboy’s narrative. The movie is made to be a representation of Ponyboy’s perspective since it is the narrative the book is written in but seeing the actors interacting on screen gives an idea of what they actually were like outside of Ponyboy’s eyes. Like when Dally’s last word is Pony in the movie but we don’t see it in the book, the movie is less like Ponyboy is writing his theme and more like a flashback before he writes it. Still heavily influenced by his ideas on who everyone is to him.
The musical almost completely shifts away from this. Ponyboy is still our narrator and storyteller but with the musical it’s less like he’s writing his theme or a flashback but more like we are seeing everything in real time. All the characters in the musical feel elevated to some degree, they act like the characters we know and love from the traditional story but just more, because we shift away from Ponyboy’s perspective. He’s on the stage almost the entire time during the musical, sometimes interacting with other characters but other times he’s just watching, like he’s apart of the audience like us. The musical is also the first time we see scenes that don’t actively have Ponyboy in them, such as when Dally gives Johnny the switchblade, or how we see the aftermath of Bob’s murder in justice for Tulsa, we see Two-bit getting jumped by the socs after Ponyboy and Johnny ran away which started as a one off line in the book, the entirety of throwing in the towel and the scene before where we see Soda and Darry actively breaking without their little brother Ponyboy is not directly present for. He’s just watching. Every singe is almost told in the perspective of the character who’s singing it, such as Darry’s true and raw struggles in Runs in the family. Little brother is the most interesting one of these examples because for a moment, Dally completely takes over the narrative, all of it is his struggles and raw emotions and grief, the perspective stays with Dally from when Johnny dies up until the moment we hear the train and Dally dies, then the control of the story snaps right back to Ponyboy.
The storytelling of The Outsiders musical is nothing like we’ve seen before in the entirety of this book being written and existing. It’s what pushes some of the fandom away but it’s also what keeps a good amount of us enjoying the new take.