Review by Ron Fassler . . .
Famously, New York City’s Joe Allen restaurant on West 46th Street features a wall of shame; its brick walls decorated with the original posters of flop shows from the past six decades. Three are vampire musicals: Dance of the Vampires (2002), Dracula, the Musical (2004), and Lestat (2006). Twenty years later, The Lost Boys, based on the 1987 film of the same name, is a $27 million dollar extravaganza about bloodsucking teenagers that is vainly vying to NOT wind up on that wall (or should that be veinly?). Well, unlike those others, this new musical at the Palace Theatre is a Peter Pan allegorical fantasy that’s really something to crow about. I was both bitten and smitten.
I never saw the movie—if nothing else a microcosm of 80s couture—that featured Kiefer Sutherland as David, a young vampire clad in leather with a dyed blonde mullet (a get-up they’ve also saddled actor Ali Louis Bourzgui with). From what I discern, the plot is very much the same in both with a bit of back story added to the musical to flesh out its lead character’s motivations. In the brooding Jason Patric role, LJ Benet’s Michael is the young man who moves with his mother Lucy (Shoshana Bean) and comic book nerd little brother Sam (Benjamin Pajak), from Arizona to the fictional beachfront community of Santa Clara in California. Lucy is now urgently fleeing from an abusive marriage in which physical violence has played a part, rather than divorce, as depicted on screen. Back to the home left to Lucy by her recently deceased father (don’t worry, he doesn’t come back as a vampire), Michael quickly falls into a hate/love relationship with David and his fellow vampires, this time a rock band, better to serve a musical than the film’s bunch of bikers. Star (Maria Wirries), a young woman in the tribe who is not yet a fully-fledged vampire, conveniently serves as the inevitable love interest for Michael.
If it all sounds sort rather pedestrian, indeed it is. But director Michael Arden has staged things with dazzling precision on the towering set provided by Dane Laffrey, his longtime scenic designer who earned a Tony for last season’s Maybe Happy Ending (Arden took home a Tony as well for his direction). Laffrey will almost certainly repeat again at next month’s Tonys with his staggeringly impressive work here; an abandoned ironworks that’s home to David and his fellow vampires and contains staircases, catwalks, and elevators with extra scenery that come down from the flies and up through the floor so often that you know the budget for hydraulics (and neon) was stratospheric. Arden also takes a co-credit for the brilliant lighting design with Jen Shriever that generate breathtaking effects. Although briefly sidelined by the underwhelming Queen of Versailles earlier this season, Arden is back on top with his staging here, which is every bit as exceptional as that of Maybe Happy Ending, as well as his 2023 revival of Parade (his first Tony for directing), A Christmas Carol (2022), Once on This Island (2017), Spring Awakening (2015). Five out of six wildly creative productions is a hell of a batting average. A former actor, Arden also brings out the best in his cast (all admirable), whether their feet are solid on the ground or they are flying multiple stories in the air, hovering up near the top of the Palace’s proscenium arch. The often daredevil somersaulting is worthy of a special Tony Award for Gwyneth Larsen and Billy Mulholland, credited in the program with Aerial Design.
The music and lyrics are supplied by the rock band the Rescues (Kyler England, Adrianne “AG” Gonzalez, and Gabriel Mann), who have been turning out albums for twenty years, in addition to live performing and composing film and television soundtracks. Though the lyrics provided for The Lost Boys are somewhat pedestrian, the music soars when it should and many of the ballads (too many, sadly), can come off repetitive. But certain songs, charming when necessary and creepy when called for, don’t disappoint.
What gives the show its heartbeat are its special effects. But if I were to recommend a show solely on that basis I would have shouted from the rooftops that Bono and the Edge’s Spiderman: Turn off the Dark demanded to be seen, and I did not. What’s different is that this is state-of-the-art so remarkable that it works to pull you in in surprising ways. Spiderman was like going to the circus, and I never liked the circus, even as a small kid. Lost Boys taps into something that the child in me still yearns for: the ability to be amazed. This is a show that looks like no other on Broadway. Who knew the proscenium arch of the Palace Theatre went so high? It’s absolutely thrilling to see every inch of a stage used so intelligently and with such panache.
And even if David Hornsby and Chris Hoch’s book for Lost Boys sometimes lets us down with cliches that might have been avoided, this group of actors find ways to make their scenes work (credit Arden for that). I enjoyed Benet as Michael, a strong singer with charisma, even if Bourzgui’s David gets the better of him in nearly every scene they share. As he demonstrated with the title role in The Who’s Tommy in 2024, Bourzgui is a talent to watch. Wirries, who sang a memorable “Somewhere” in the Sondheim revue Old Friends on Broadway last season, is a standout as Star. She has genuine presence and sings with strength and conviction. Pajak, a wonderful Oliver at Encores! in 2023, is now about a foot taller and still possesses wonderful comic timing and expressivity in his singing. It’ll be exciting as he grows into more mature roles onstage. Shoshana Bean, who gave a Tony Award-level performance in Hell’s Kitchen (2024), can now practically file a patent on portraying stage moms. A powerhouse voice loaded with empathy, she’s a pleasure to watch. In smaller roles, I enjoyed Jennifer Duka and Miguel Gil, who display terrific comedy chops as a pair of eager vampire hunters, and Paul Alexander Nolan, as always, contributes a strong characterization with a sensational singing voice.
Christina Grant (costumes), David Brian Brown (hair and wig design), and Markus Maurette (special effects design) are all exemplary. The choreography credited to Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant, both in the air and on the ground, are atmospherically beautiful.
I believe this vampire musical has the potential to succeed where other vapid entries in this genre have failed. What makes it different is that this one has been much more intelligently put together and, despite some flaws, really works. The Lost Boys will lure you in and keep you thoroughly entertained.
At the Palace Theatre, 1564 Broadway (at 47th Street), New York; https://www.lostboysmusical.com
Photos by Matthew Murphy.
Headline photo: LJ Benet, Ali Louis Bourzgui, and Company.
