1 month ago
Broadway‘s Curse of nan Vampire Musicals mightiness beryllium taking a liking done nan bosom correct astir now. The Lost Boys, nan Michael Arden-directed shape adjustment of nan 1987 movie astir teenage bloodsuckers, opens coming astatine nan Palace Theatre, and it’s slayer fun.
Nightmare memories of Lestat, Dracula nan Musical and Dance of nan Vampires slice for illustration twilight wrong minutes of The Lost Boys‘ opening bite, arsenic 1 of nan title creatures swoops down from nan rafters to alert disconnected pinch a hapless information defender attempting to roust those meddlesome kids from an abandoned steelworks factory.
Like Stranger Things: The First Shadow playing a midtown-block away, nan imaginative squad down The Lost Boys musical, on pinch a terrific cast, look to person figured retired how, exactly, to accommodate nan scary genre to nan stage, and, yes, it has overmuch to do pinch advances successful shape trade and tech, from nan jump-scare-friendly improvements successful sound creation (the amended for those large thunder-like cracks) to typical effects (the aerial stunts that bedeviled Angels successful America rehearsals backmost successful nan early ’90s look much than a spot quaint compared to each nan soaring these vampires do).
But location besides seems to beryllium a definite fearlessness going on, aliases astatine slightest a deficiency of inhibition (maybe a deficiency of embarrassment even?) successful live-action genre storytelling. The Lost Boys, for illustration First Shadow and Harry Potter and nan Cursed Child, goes for collapsed successful embracing nan admittedly loonier broadside of their chiller-thriller adventures. Carrie The Musical they are not.
The Lost Boys moreover has 1 up successful nan gumption class complete First Shadow and Cursed Child: Music. The imaginable of a chorus afloat of undead breaking retired successful opus surely runs nan consequence of cringy absurdity, but The Lost Boys sails complete those traps: The driving people by L.A. indie set The Rescues (Kyler England, AG, Gabriel Mann) puts 1 successful mind of nan rock-based sounds of Dead Outlaw, sometimes moreover Stereophonic. Not bad institution astatine all. (There’s a rambunctious dash of nan wildly celebrated The Outsiders here, too, for those keeping count).
It helps, of course, to person a formed arsenic loaded pinch good singers arsenic this accumulation has. Shoshana Bean, Tommy‘s Ali Louis Bourzgui, The Music Man‘s Benjamin Pajak and Broadway newcomer LJ Benet present nan vocal equipment moreover erstwhile nan 2 and a half-hour tally clip shows immoderate padding. (But what to cut? A emotion communicative crippled that does, successful fact, supply immoderate basal characteristic motivation? The backstory flashbacks astir an abusive begetter that propose not each monsters person fangs? I’d opt to support both.)
Benet, nan production’s large find, plays Michael Emerson, a teenage rebel who moves pinch his now-single mom Lucy (Bean) and persnickety kid relative Sam (Pajak) from a bad home business successful Arizona to a recently inherited cottage successful nan California formation municipality of San Carla. The twelvemonth is 1987, and nan moody (to opportunity nan least) Michael soon finds his people – nan punk-slash-heavy metallic teens who bent retired down by nan pier arcade. They play successful a stone set too, providing 1 of this production’s neatest tricks: At points, nan level of a conception of nan shape closest to nan assemblage drops down to propose a mosh pit, while nan Lost Boys’ set rises up, a benignant of show-within-the-show. It works.
As loner Michael is drawn into this underworld of brotherly camaraderie and intersexual attraction (he’s smitten pinch nan semi-Lost woman Star, appealingly played by Maria Wirries, but head Arden doesn’t awkward distant from undertones of Anne Rice-style pansexuality among nan vamps), he gets bitten, literally, by this intriguing caller world.
Younger bro Sam, meanwhile, finds his ain niche: Browsing nan section comic book shop, he meets 2 chap nerds who telephone themselves nan Frog Brothers (Miguel Gil, Jennifer Duka) moreover though one’s a sister which seems to confuse everyone but them. When these self-styled vampire-hunters (they dress sorta for illustration Ninja Turtles) explicate nan laic of nan onshore to their caller pal Sam, nan trio soon realizes that Michael is becoming 1 of nan undead, and truthful group retired to find and liking nan caput vampire truthful arsenic to prevention Michael from afloat transitioning (ignore that buzzword – there’s nary proposal of immoderate double meaning).
Mom Lucy, meanwhile, has landed a caller occupation astatine nan arcade’s video shop and is making love her ever-helpful leader Max (Paul Alexander Nolan).
So that’s nan set-up, and it allows nan philharmonic to plaything betwixt spotlighted solos to large group numbers – nan show’s astir arresting choreography is of nan aerial sort, and 1 number successful peculiar is simply a stunner, pinch each of nan Lost Boys, Michael now included, soaring and spinning and flipping precocious supra nan shape successful a ballet that’s arsenic beautiful arsenic it is thrilling. The monolithic capacity abstraction of Broadway’s beautifully renovated Palace Theatre is shown to overmuch amended effect than pinch caller inhabitants Glengarry Glen Ross (too intimate), Tammy Faye (too bad) and Beetlejuice (too onshore bound).
With a formed of beardown singers, Lost Boys gives each of nan principals respective chances to shine, and while that tin make for immoderate repetition, it besides showcases nan collected talent. Benet kicks things disconnected pinch nan aggravated “Lose Yourself” – nan show’s I Want opus – and Bean gets 1 of nan Rescue’s tuneful powerfulness ballads successful “Wild,” a middle-aged longing for nan breathtaking days of youth. Pajak, whose overtly comic style early connected tin look a tad retired of measurement pinch nan different performances, finds his pay-off successful “Superpower,” a second-act showstopper, complete pinch successful which his Sam comes to position pinch what’s only been hinted astatine earlier (mostly via a vintage-Rob Lowe beefcake poster successful his bedroom). “But possibly I tin beryllium a leader here,” he sings, “and make it cool to beryllium queer. Maybe that’s my superpower.”
And past there’s Bourzgui, whose vampire pack leader David is fashioned arsenic thing betwixt nan film’s Kiefer Sutherland and classical Billy Idol (Ryan Park’s costume design, on pinch nan hairsbreadth and wig stylings of David Brian Brown, are connected constituent throughout). As nan title characteristic successful The Who’s Tommy respective seasons back, Bourzgui seemed, oddly enough, some underused and overwhelmed, but with The Lost Boys he becomes a star, his deep, mellifluous sound gliding from purr to growl to rock-and-roll shriek and sounding rather dissimilar anyone other presently connected a Broadway stage. He slinks arsenic cat-like arsenic anyone complete astatine nan Jellicle Ball, and pounces pinch lusty gusto. It’s nary overstatement to opportunity The Lost Boys just wouldn’t activity without him.
Also nary overstatement to statement that nan show’s producers – including character Patrick Wilson and Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures – person spent lavishly connected this reportedly $25 cardinal show. Dane Laffrey, a predominant collaborator of head Arden, has designed a spectacular group of galore moving parts, including a chamber that descends from supra erstwhile needed, a stone shape that comes from nan different guidance and capable catwalk-style perches to springiness nan full shebang an advent almanac consciousness pinch nan type bat group stationed successful each acheronian nook and cranny. Arden and Jen Schriever adhd a lighting creation that pairs perfectly pinch Adam Fisher’s sound creation to nail nan jump scares.
Markus Maurette, Broadway’s existent go-to feline for typical effects (Harry Potter and nan Cursed Child, Stranger Things: The First Shadow) comes done again pinch explosions, flashes of occurrence and a goodly magnitude of blood-letting.
The show’s book by David Hornsby (It’s Always Sunny successful Philadelphia) and Chris Hoch has an easy, modern consciousness that doesn’t spell overboard connected nan ’80s nostalgia (although that’s present excessively for anyone who gets nan passing reference to “Sunglasses astatine Night” and remembers that buff, oiled-up, ponytailed sax subordinate from nan Tina Turner videos and Lost Boys movie). The writers did immoderate tightening by eliminating 1 important characteristic – nan not-so-clueless grandfather played successful nan movie by Barnard Hughes – whose absence requires nan movie’s fondly remembered last words to spell to different character, a move that undercuts nan joke much than a bit. Perhaps that’s why Arden and nan book writers person added a little post-curtain kicker that’s worthy hanging astir for, a bully small communicative wound successful a philharmonic that has nary shortage of them.
Title: The Lost Boys
Venue: Broadway’s Palace Theatre
Director: Michael Arden
Book: David Hornsby & Chris Hoch (Based connected nan Warner Bros movie The Lost Boys, Original Story by Janice Fischer & James Jeremias)
Music & Lyrics: The Rescues
Cast: LJ Benet, Shoshana Bean, Ali Louis Bourzgui, Benjamin Pajak, Maria Wirries, Paul Alexander Nolan, Jennifer Duka, Miguel Gil, Brian Flores, Sean Grandillo, Dean Maupin.
Running time: 2 hr 30 min (including intermission)
