In the 80s, arguably the best decade ever for a young man to come of age, there were four landmark movie breakout performances that every young man of a certain age could identify with: young Tom Cruise in Risky Business, young Kevin Bacon in Footloose, young Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and young Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. Each one had its own catch phrases, its own humor, and its own fashion. (This critic personally bought his first and only down vest not because he ever intended to ski, but because Marty McFly looked really cool in one.) Up til now, only one of them has attempted to make that great jump from screen to stage musical, a lackluster and flubbed Footloose in the 90s that missed all the charm of the movie and coasts solely on the legendary chart-topping soundtrack. This past season, Back to the Future made a jump across the Atlantic after opening in London to a lukewarm welcome on Broadway, being virtually ignored by the always snobby Tony committee. The good news is the national tour currently playing the Kennedy Center doesn’t have to pander to that ungrateful crowd and is a bona fide 1.21 gigawatts of fast-paced fun.
Bob Gale’s book (based on his original screenplay with film director Robert Zemeckis), about a teen from a family of “slackers” who can’t get a break accidentally ends up traveling back in time and, after wrecking the delicate “space/time continuum”, gets one chance to repair it with surprising repercussions when he returns to present day, knows where the comedy and the strengths in his script are and retains them, even improving some. Alan Silvestri, with Glen Ballard, incorporates large chunks of his (should have been Oscar nominated) film score with original music in a fun blend of mock 80s (mock-Huey Lewis 80s guy rock to be specific) with mock 50s (and one clever mock-future music track), then wisely throws in a few sentimentally expected tracks from the film (“Earth Angel” and “Johnny B. Goode” from the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance and Lewis’ 80s power hits that drove the soundtrack to #1, “The Power of Love” and “Back in Time”). Director John Rando gets Zemeckis’ intentions and mounts it all together in a most improbable, fun-packed, fast-paced action comedy adapted to the stage.
The cast has some legendary shoes to fill. Michael J. Fox sky-rocketed from breakout supporting character in a moderately popular “must-see TV” series (Family Ties) into an A-list movie stratosphere star. Newcomer Caden Brauch, making his “past, present, and future national tour debut” turns in a similar star-making performance. Funny, charming, and incredibly engaging, he does everything Fox did comically and dramatically, plus sings and dances. He’s nails the Huey Lewis sound and shows off some impressive footwork along the way. Oddly given second billing in his own story (obviously to appease London and Broadway star, Tony winner Roger Bart who initiated the role of Doc Brown in both productions), Brauch is undeniably the very capable star and carries the show on his down vest covered shoulders, even if/especially because he is making his professional debut.
Christopher Lloyd’s iconic white jumpsuit is admirably filled by Don Stephenson, who makes the most of Doc Brown’s comic clowning (although influenced more by Bart’s interpretation than the legendary Christopher Lloyd’s), In addition, he gets the opportunity to bang out some great numbers throughout the decades: an 80s rock “It Works”, a 50s crooning “Future Boy”, and even a mock future rock “21st Century” to open Act 2–all complete with a red hot Solid Gold backup troupe of dancing girls that he explains “just show up every time I start singing”. Stephenson sells all of Lloyd’s comic lunacy and physical hijinks, yet ironically delivers the musical’s only emotional ballad, the quietly touching “For the Dreamers”, saluting all the Einsteins, Edisons, and other flops-turned-geniuses who paved the way for him to discover time travel. And like Lloyd, he impressively single-handedly sells the action climax of the show in the iconic clock tower set piece, attempting to channel a lightning bolt into the 1.21 gigawatt power source to send Marty back to the future (a sequence brilliantly staged by Director Rando and Designer Tim Hatley).
Zan Berube as Marty’s mom-to-be Lorraine Baines covers all the ground from sweet (and saucy) smitten 50s lovestruck teenager to parallel universe versions of her 80s self to bookend the story. When Marty’s arrival interrupts history and she doesn’t meet her future husband as history dictated, she transfers all her newfound teen passion into now crush Marty, never suspecting he’s her future son. Berube employs all her naive charm in most of the better 50s musical segment, the girl group “Pretty Baby” where she fawns over a sleeping Marty who ignites her budding womanly passion with those infamous lavender Calvin Klein briefs, and “There’s Something About That Boy”, a counterpoint song with bully Biff Tannen (Ethan Rogers) wherein Marty attracts too much of all the wrong attention at school for a guy who’s supposed to be slinking unobtrusively through the background of the past. She’s also a fun shock in the parking lot scene when she demonstrates all her prim parenting based on her chaste past is a lie.
Ethan Rogers is hilarious as the many sides of Biff Tannen, perpetual thorn in Marty’s father’s side. As stereotypically big and dumb as they come, Rogers can pack both a punch and a belt. It’s not often a bully can retain his cred while singing a rousing first act finale. Rogers also has fun playing off his 50s character who most definitely peaked in high school as two adult bookending variations on his former heyday.
The only thing worse than finding out firsthand your mother was a “fast girl” in high school is finding out your father was a complete and utter loser. And that premise is the comic gold of this tour with Burke Swanson as George McFly. Ribbed throughout with the catchphrase “Hello, McFly, is anybody home?” (delivered not only by bully Biff, but his own son sings it as a lament of his nowhere station in life in the opening scenes), Swanson assures all the lights are on in this uproarious comic performance. He draws flawlessly on all of Crispin Glover’s dorky maneuvers from the movie (anything less would be a disappointment), and somehow makes them even bigger and funnier for stage. The laugh, the paranoia, ever the comic underdog, Swanson is charming to watch evolve from zero to hero to success under the pivotal transformation of Marty’s presence in 1955. Just when we think his funniest moment is his underwhelming, pathetic attempt at courting Lorraine (“You’re my density!”), he transcends it when taking lessons in being cool from his own son in “Put Your Mind to It”, a throwback to Footloose‘s “Let’s Hear It for the Boy”, where Marty teaches him some “futuristic” Mick Jagger swagger to boost his confidence for his pivotal command performance at the dance to win Lorraine and get history back on track.
Recognition also deservedly goes to Cartreze Tucker who stands out of the dual role of future mayor Goldie Wilson and “Enchantment Under the Sea” entertainment Marvin Berry. He leads a gospel-infused “You Gotta Start Somewhere” when Marty recognizes him as the mayor in the future, planting the idea decades ahead of time, as well as delivering all the classic sounds for the critical plot points in “Earth Angel” and “Johnny B. Goode”.
But if the performances are rock and roll solid, the technical aspects of the show are unheard of levels of stellar. Rando rounds up a team of top notch experts to deliver movie magic in a decidedly harder live theatre venue.
Scenic and Costume Designer (billed simply as “Designer” in the credits, and an impressive title that is) Tim Hatley pulls out all the stops to take a beloved futuristic movie from screen to stage. All the iconic elements from the film—the clock tower climax, the time-travelling DeLorean, the flaming fire tracks it leaves behind, the to-scale simulation Doc Brown puts together to work out the specifics of the transference of the energy from the lightning bolt–they’re all there. Hatley pulls a total team collaboration with Lighting Designers Tim Lutkin and Hugh Vanstone, Video Designer Finn Ross, and, perhaps most critically, Illusions Designer Chris Fisher (Great Scott! When the DeLorean appears from nowhere and disappears into the abyss as it enters and exits the space/time continuum, it’s even more impressive than in the film, which took several million dollars and George Lucas’ prestigious Industrial Light & Magic effects to make believable; Fisher does it before our very eyes).
Hatley’s coordinating costume plot is directly out of the movie from Marty’s ski vest to his infamous lavender Calvin Klein briefs that jumpstarted a generation of young men to jump on the fashion (like the vest, I’ve been an exclusive CK customer since, only disappointed they never mass-produced the movie’s lavender ones; TMI?). He even builds costumes and set colors in Lorraine’s chaste bedroom seduction scene in valentine shades of lavender and pink to spotlight the iconic briefs. His ubiquitous 50s pastels and 80s electric color palettes are dead on, and his “21st Century” Jetson-inspired metallic jumpsuits are great parody poking fun at the then-future that is now the present.
Choreographer Chris Bailey’s dance numbers are solid dueling period fun for the first half of the show, giving us gospel revival vibes, girl group elegance, Jagger swagger, and a full stage schoolwide chase as both Lorraine and Biff search out Marty in “There’s Something About That Boy”. But Bailey throws it into nuclear-powered high gear as the action switches to the key Enchantment Under the Sea dance, where he has to not only provide his ensemble with rocking dance moves but also choreograph a fight scene and a pivotal lifesaving kiss, as the story goes. But it’s these last few numbers, from the sensually stirring elegance of “Earth Angel” into a lively flip, lift, and throw filled jitterbug during “Johnny B. Goode” (the terpsichorean highlight of the show) and the Huey Lewis double punch of hits at the end where he leaves his mark.
Sylvestri and Ballard do an admirable job blending the classic motion picture score with two generations of pop music, sometimes even cleverly sampling familiar musical phrases from the former in the vocal passages of the latter. The duo also deserve some credit for finding rhymes for some seemingly impossible plot-point references like “plutonium”, “continuum”, and “DeLorean”. (Doc Brown’s realization that “I will find my glory in this stainless steel DeLorean” is perhaps the cleverest.) Perhaps their best original sequence is Marty McFly’s arrival in 1955 Hill Valley town square which we’ve just seen in run down 1985 a scene before. Not only is the set immediately brighter and squeakier clean, so is the music, in “Cake”, featuring Milton Berle’s singing Texaco service station attendants (hawking their state-of-the-art leaded gasoline), and a bevy of other time-tested products like a girl group trio celebrating doctor-approved, good-for-you filtered cigarettes and others pitching asbestos containing paint and DDT pesticide.
Gale’s screenplay is arguably one of the most original and inspired of the genre (if not ever), finding all the perfect humor in its unique combination of a science fiction story that also has elements of rom-coms, mistaken identity farce, excelling in all the tongue-in-cheek, self-aware references throughout, preserving both nostalgia and contemporary humor simultaneously. His stage adaptation is even more fun, poking fun at the way he poked fun 40 years ago with all the knowledge we have acquired since. In the movie, we saw the humor of viewing the bucolic life of the 50s through the lens of the excessive 80s. Today we get to also evaluate the excessive 80s through the cautionary lens of today.
But with all the strengths this tour provides in inspiration, nostalgia, strong performances, and creative adaptation, the special effects in this tour are unbelievable. Not only top-notch, they are downright unprecedented. You will see nothing like this in any other stage production anywhere. They are eye-boggling and thrilling and as critical a part of this storytelling as they are in the film. Which brings me to the real takeaway of this fun-filled tour that does everything right……
There is a very vocal group of theatre snobs today who have been given too big a voice with their individual social media soap boxes. Offspring of the irrelevant snotty New York critics and the prehistoric Tony committee, there are phrases one must utter to sound educated and smart in theatrical circles. “We need more original works”, “No more musicals from movies”, “We loathe jukebox musicals”, “That’s just theme park entertainment”. This elitist snobbery is becoming insufferable and unrealistic. First of all, with the obscene costs of producing musicals these days, and the even more obscene ticket prices to see one, both producers and audiences are banking those dollars on properties with name recognition value. (Today’s insane prices hit home for me last year when my daughter wanted to see The Phantom of the Opera before it closed in New York, and I secured great half priced orchestra seats at TKTS, then realized I paid $20 more for them then I did to see the original cast three months after the show opened and was the biggest success, sold out for over a year, and the most expensive ticket in history to date.) And with every major movie studio tired of watching Disney rake in megamillions of dollars on Broadway, they all want their part of the Wicked pie and are branching into theatrical development to mine all their very familiar titles into marketable theatrical properties.
On top of that, most of your cherished “original” musicals are all adapted from other properties. Show Boat, Oklahoma, and South Pacific from books. Hello Dolly, Mame, and My Fair Lady from plays. Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof, and Guys & Dolls from story anthologies. Godspell and Jesus Christ, Superstar from the Bible. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying from a humorous parody of self-help books. And yes some beloved titles like She Loves Me, Chicago, Nine (next up in the Kennedy Center’s prestigious Broadway Center Stage series), and Little Shop of Horrors are even adapted from movies. The truth is there are precious few actual “original” musicals out there. And when every other medium is ripe for adaption, why are movies so detested as a source? While yes, some can be uninspired, like the insufferable Tootsie, Leap of Faith, or Meet Me in St. Louis (all four versions of it), when they’re done well they can be great, even elevating the source, like Little Shop, Legally Blonde, The Wedding Singer, Sunset Boulevard, or Moulin Rouge. The same with jukebox musicals. For every flop like Good Vibrations, Leader of the Pack, or All Shook Up, there are masterpieces like Mamma Mia, Jersey Boys, Ain’t Too Proud, or The Cher Show (shut up, I told you to see it, you didn’t see it, so you have nothing to add; it was amazing).
And yes, I admit I got throwback “theme park” thrills when the lights flash and the score blares and the DeLorean does it’s time travel thing, and that was a phenomenal experience. I was transported back to the 90s and Universal Studios’ superior Back to the Future ride experience, one of the most thrilling of the day, both in story telling and physical ride intensity. May I remind these snobs who lob the term “theme park” around as a clear insult, that the other 98% of the population who could care less about theatre use the term “Broadway” as the ultimate insult for pop music stylizing. And with even mediocre theme parks charging the equivalent of an expensive Broadway show, if I can get the superior thrills I used to get off one in the modern format of the other, that’s a double win.
The fact is musicals inspired by movies are here to stay and they are not going away. Fighting that is a sign of imminent irrelevance. Moreover, when original musicals are introduced, most don’t make it. Look at this season of mostly original(-ish) works, which produced a basically lackluster response and the least viewed Tony awards in years of declining viewership. Broadway is evolving in this direction and isn’t turning back, which leaves one three choices: embrace the change for the positive thing that it can be, remain as irrelevant and archaic as the totally out-of-touch Tony committee who get more things wrong than right today, or build your own DeLorean time machine and travel back to the Golden Age which wasn’t as “original” as you think it was. So a compromise might be to accept that if we’re going to produce movies made from musicals, do it the proper way, as this production of Back to the Future does, getting everything right. Get the original creatives involved. Salute the best of the movie. Improve the lesser parts. Add thrills. Bring movie magic to the stage. If this production of Back to the Future is the future of Broadway, then let’s embrace that future and jump into it. Or find that DeLorean.
So don’t be a butthead! Make like a tree and get down to the Kennedy Center to catch this breathtaking production before it’s in the past. Consider it your density!
Photos courtesy of Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Running Time: 2 hours and 45 minutes with one intermission
Back to the Future: The Musical plays through August 11, 2024, in the Opera House at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2700 F Street NW, Washington, DC. For tickets call the box office at (202) 467-4600 or purchase them online.