‘Back To The Future: The Musical’ Broadway Review: Johnny B. Goode Enough
deadline.comBack To The Future: The Musical made me very nostalgic for that great time-traveling ’80s movie, but Peggy Sue Got Married isn’t available on any of my streaming services.
That’s not to disparage the classic 1985 Back to the Future film starring Michael J. Fox – a charmer of the time-travel genre that enjoyed a brief vogue capped by Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure in 1989 – but the BTFM musical stage adaptation opening tonight on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre is so bombastically intent on justifying its existence that it bullies away whatever warm nostalgia we might have for the movie.
With a cast directed (by John Rando) to exaggerate every joke, gesture and facial expression – only the always reliable Roger Bart, who plays the eccentric genius inventor Doc Brown, has the chops and instincts to nail the over-the-topness, just as he did in Mel Brooks’ The Producers [Editor’s Note/Disclaimer: Bart is the nephew of Deadline columnist Peter Bart] – Back To The Future gradually settles in to an enjoyable-enough thrill park ride, with its special effects, video projections and lighting finally paying off in the final 20 minutes of its nearly three-hour running time.
Part of the blame for the mostly lackluster experience falls to the music and lyrics by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard, a generic-sounding pastiche of ’80s and ’50s rock styles that fails to capture the excitement or freshness of either era.
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