The eagerly awaited tour of the Broadway musical based on the 1985 movie “Back to the Future” tries to resemble the original very closely in some ways — Marty McFly, his parents and the bully Biff are look-alikes of the screen actors — but it also wants to be a singing, dancing stage spectacle with cool special effects.
That is where the DeLorean-driven show really took flight at The Bushnell, when the actors got lively and the lighting and sound were grandiose.
The production was directed in New York and now on this tour by John Rando, and uses some of the shifting action techniques he brought to “Because of Winn Dixie: The Musical,” the 2019 Goodspeed Opera House production that starred a dog.
“Back to the Future” may seem an odd movie to make a musical out of. Its plot depends on a disappearing car, people who vanish from photos, characters who appear as teens and also when they are middle-aged. Seems like a lot of suspended disbelief is required. The show’s creators take this as a challenge and also do their damnedest to humanize this sci-fi comedy classic.
It’s hard to imagine what someone who hasn’t seen the movie would make of this story as spun onstage — high schooler Marty McFly helps his elderly friend Doc Brown with a time machine project, crashes in the 1950s, upends his parents’ courtship and has to rekindle the relationship before he and his future siblings (and possibly Brown) cease to exist. In a different format the plot seems pretty convoluted. There’s even an added complication in which the time machine car only responds to the voice of Doc.
‘Back to the Future’ co-screenwriter on adapting sci-fi comedy into musical coming to The Bushnell
Yet the musical reminds you that for all its sci-fi finery “Back to the Future” is mainly a love story about how Marty’s parents find each other and enrich each other’s lives. This sweet romance is underscored by some surefire musical theater staging which centers around wistful dialogues, family interactions, newly formed friendships and community fervor. The stage show makes you realize what important characters Goldie Wilson and “Clock Tower Woman” can be in this story.
“Back to the Future: The Musical” also has a loud, raucous side. The ensemble company is muscular and acrobatic. There’s more than one scene filled with high school cheerleaders and football players doing flips or even breakdancing. The culminating 1950s dance in the school gym gets into high-energy flapping hoop skirt territory. There’s also a running gag in which when Doc sings he is suddenly surrounded by a kick line of dancers.
Marty is played on tour by Lucas Hallauer, who relies a lot on facial expressions, especially open-mouthed amazement at just about anything his parents say, to maintain a high comic style. His parents, who are also his teen peers, are just as playful and athletic. Mike Bindeman brings wild physical comedy to the awkward George, making the most of scenes where he is being taught to fight for himself. As Lorraine, Zan Berube’s bedroom tussling with Marty (as he tries to keep her at arm’s length) is the sort of choreographed come-on that musical theater is made for.
The tour made a few big cast changes just before it arrived in Hartford. The wild-haired inventor Doc, Marty’s mentor, is now played by David Josefberg, who played several other roles in the show on Broadway. He has understudied Doc before now and knows the role well. He’s scruffier and shorter than the iconic movie Doc, Christopher Lloyd, and doesn’t lean as close to an impersonation of the movie character as most of the other lead characters do, which gives the production a welcome element of surprise. Other recent additions to the cast are Nathaniel Hackmann as a Biff, a thoroughly convincing bully, and Sophia Yacap as a gently supportive and vocally superb Jennifer Parker, Marty’s girlfriend.
For those who’ve memorized the movie, it’s fun watching how the stage show solves problems creatively. Nobody’s strapping a dog into a speeding car but that souped-up DeLorean itself whizzes around with astonishing versatility thanks to some precise mechanical gadgetry, sweeping lighting and sound effects and the age-old theatrical moving-vehicle trick of rapidly shifting backdrops. Nobody’s fleeing from Libyan terrorists. The danger to Doc is now radiation poisoning. Marty and his future mom meet not when he’s hit by a car but when he falls out of a tree. Obviously there’s no skateboard chase or truck full of poop, but there is a beautifully choreographed chaotic full cast kerfuffle in the high school cafeteria.
Tim Hatley serves as both the set designer and costume designer for “Back to the Future: The Musical” and there’s a neat consistency to his work. In the first scene, Marty plugs a guitar into some of Doc’s science equipment and it blows apart like a cartoon clock. Later, when Doc bends over, there is an elaborately conceived pants-ripping moment. In both cases, it’s wonderful to see a show like this practicing skilled stagecraft and not resorting to too many projected images or other less lively methods.
The song “Mr. Sandman” isn’t heard in the idyllic town of Mill Valley in this version, but another ‘50s hit used in the film, “Earth Angel,” still is and it’s still the Chuck Berry classic “Johnny B. Goode” that Marty shreds on guitar at the school dance. The Huey Lewis songs “Power of Love” and “Back in Time” are heard as well, mainly during the lengthy curtain call.
There are also around 20 original songs which fit in beautifully with the musical tone of the movie. That’s because the music and lyrics are by the film’s composer Alan Silvestri. This is his first stage musical in a career that’s lasted over 50 years with hundreds of film and TV projects. Silvestri wrote the songs with Glenn Ballard, who has a little more theater experience with musicals “Jagged Little Pill” and “Ghost” and is known for oodles of pop hits.
A lot of minor characters in the musical get their own numbers and the main characters get multiple opportunities to underscore their identities through song. Some of these stand on their own as rich expressions of hopes, dreams and the future (“Got No Future,” “Future Boy,” “For the Dreamers”), while the best ones are pastiches of classic showtunes, as when Biff and his sidekicks 3D and Slick break into a slick finger-snapping streetwise bit that could come from “West Side Story.”
Ultimately the songs are secondary to the well-known story, and all that substance is enhanced by presenting it in a new style and from some new angles. For instance, the movie makes fun of the 1950s from a 1980s perspective, but the musical gets to make fun of both eras. There are bobby sox dancers but also spandex-wearing aerobic ones. There’s even a Star Wars routine.
The merchandise booth in the lobby is just as geared to “Back to the Future” fans as are some of the details in the script. You can purchase a poster for the Enchantment Under the Sea dance or a tote bag emblazoned with “Save the Clock Tower” info or a T-shirt for Marty’s band The Pinheads. There’s even a DeLorean parked in the Bushnell courtyard for added effect.
There are plenty of bum stage musical versions of famous movies, most of which fail by being afraid to leave things out of the original or not thinking in terms of what live theater can add to a movie story. “Back to the Future: The Musical” goes back to “Back to the Future,” recreating it lovingly with extra songs and dances and adding a level of sparkly eyed enjoyment. It McFlies.
“Back to the Future: The Musical” runs through June 8 at The Bushnell, 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford. The remaining performances are Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1 and 6:30 p.m. $39-$149. bushnell.org.
