Back to the Future
Opening Night: August 3, 2023
Theater: Winter Garden Theatre
Website: www.backtothefuturemusical.com
When Marty McFly finds himself transported back to 1955 in a time machine built by the eccentric scientist Doc Brown, he accidentally changes the course of history. Now he’s in a race against time to fix the present, escape the past and send himself… back to the future.
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August 3, 2023
Making material shallower, even if cleverly, is not a great argument for adaptation. It can be defended if some other value is countervailing. For me, the show’s stagecraft and general high spirits come closest to providing that value, but they are too often undone by 1955-ish ideas of Broadway style (cartwheeling cheerleaders, backflipping jocks) and 1985-ish plot points held over from the movie.
August 3, 2023
Those already familiar with the story should readily submit to seeing it onstage. Those who aren’t will not struggle to follow along — the toddler next to me got on just fine. Nostalgic ’80s charm mingled with 2023 theatrical capability is a winning combination
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August 3, 2023
Still, nothing on stage here measures up to the screen version, except the obvious: The live special effects, most notably a final sequence in which 1955 Doc climbs to the top of that clock tower during a lightning storm, with Marty speeding the DeLorean through town.
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August 3, 2023
All that dazzle might satisfy film fans looking to relive signature moments, but for others seeking re-imaginings more than repeats, “Back to the Future” will seem more fitting for a theme park than Broadway.
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August 3, 2023
Attending Back to the Future: The Musical is a bit like watching a car crash in slow motion, except for the part about not being able to look away.
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August 3, 2023
Silvestri and Ballard’s original score is so derivative it gives jukebox musicals a good name.
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August 3, 2023
It’s a terrifically fun and amusing story that works nearly as well onstage as it did on film, although the original songs, as is so often the case with these adaptations, mainly come across as superfluous.
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August 3, 2023
Back to the Future is a night of winning froth—of striking visuals, a few very good performances, and perfectly fine songs—which, just as it emphatically resists examining its more complex contours, also does its dazzling best to ensure those watching do the same.
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The musical adaptation, now on Broadway with 1.21 gigawatts of spectacle, honors all these views at once and gives Back to the Future the larger-than-life presentation it deserves.
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August 3, 2023
When you are working with some of cinema’s most iconic IP and bringing it to the stage, the pressure is certainly on. I am here to report not only do they succed with that monumental task, but Back To The Future The Musical just might be one of the most exciting feats of theatricality I have ever seen on stage. Ever.
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August 3, 2023
Stage adaptations of popular films are like time machines. In the vessel of a new musical, writers can revisit an old script and perhaps even rectify flaws that only became apparent in hindsight. It’s a chance to make a good story even better — with music! At least, that’s the hope, and the major source of disappointment when it comes to Back to the Future: The Musical, the stage adaptation of the 1985 Robert Zemeckis movie, which just opened at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre following a triumphant world premiere in the UK.
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August 3, 2023
As a general rule, the more famous the movie being adapted into a musical, the greater the pressure it exerts on the adaptation to stick to the expected course. Something like The Band’s Visit could quietly expand in its own direction, whereas Mean Girls and Moulin Rouge! sag under the weight of expectations. Creators can zag away from that by being flat-out weird, as in Beetlejuice; relentlessly exuberant, as in Legally Blonde; or introspective, as in Groundhog Day. Back to the Future simply tries to hold up its plutonium-weight source material.
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But while the rest of the production is content to play it safe and steady, give Bart credit for always putting the pedal to the metal. After all, if you’re going to throw a time machine onto a Broadway stage, why not do it with some style?
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But the musical as a whole never achieves liftoff, or even the stage equivalent of 88 miles an hour. It cruises along in a low gear for almost three hours. Unfathomable as it may seem, the show won the prestigious Olivier Award for best new musical in London. I fancifully imagine Sir Laurence was doing a bit of grave-spinning when that trophy was bestowed.
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August 3, 2023
But Huey Lewis did not sing “Power of Car,” he sang “Power of Love.” And heart is completely absent from director John Rando’s shiny and serviceable staging of the beloved 1985 science-fiction movie.
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There are laughs from turning everything into jokesville and director John Rando surely mines them, but entirely at the cost of the central transformational poignancy baked into the show.
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