By Stuart Miller…

The surefire crowd-pleaser offers everything fans of the TV series could want. 

If ever a review felt wholly unnecessary, it’s this one.

Here’s the simple answer to the question of whether you should see “Stranger Things: The First Shadow”: Yes, if… or No, if not.

Yes, if, like my stepdaughter Genevieve you’re a fan of the show– she has watched every episode and some seasons multiple times and judging by the reaction of the packed house she was definitely amongst her people. “First Shadows” is not a play so much as it is fan service, but in those regards it’s wildly successful. (As an ardent theatergoer, she could probably pick apart the script’s flaws but she was too busy enjoying the theatrical experience.)

If, like me, you’ve never watched the series, then don’t bother, unless, like me, you have someone in your life eager to go. The show is not bad per se. The broad strokes script is serviceable though none of the characters are finely shaded and indeed, most are stick figures; the acting is largely fine albeit in an unsubtle, grand gesture way, like it’s a musical, without the singing and dancing. 

(Perhaps this means I’d be a prime candidate for “Hill Street Blues: Let’s Be Careful Out There,” “The Wire: All in the Game’” or “Breaking Bad: The One Who Knocks” but I truly hope I never live to see that happen.)

The show kicks off with a bunch of text thrown up on a screen to set the scene, although unlike, say, the scroll opening of “Star Wars” this largely seems unnecessary and underwhelming. Then there’s a cold open set in 1943 that’s meant to dazzle with flashing lights, loud noises, fog, gunshot sounds, a boat under attack and a few monsters. It’s fine so far as it goes but mostly what it does is foreshadow what’s to come: a throw everything at the audience production that runs at a frenetic pace, which sometimes crosses over into frantic in its efforts to keep its TV-raised audience engaged.

The action then switches to 1959. The story revolves around the new kid in town, whose family has moved to Hawkins, Indiana to help him escape a troubled past. This kid is named Henry Creel, which means that the entire audience (except me), having watched season four, knew where the show is heading, especially in his second-act encounters with the government baddie, a young Dr. Brenner (played by Matthew Modine in the TV series).

Genevieve seemed unbothered by the fact that the characters’ futures– especially Henry Creel’s– was fully foretold, including the climactic murders of the second act. But I’d argue that these sort of IP cash grabs work better when, like “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” it’s a sequel, providing both suspense and room for more character development. (On some level, this made “First Shadow” better for me, since I didn’t know what was going to happen to Henry.)

Thankfully, Henry finds a potential soulmate in another outsider, a girl named Patty. Although she was adopted by the Newby family and is quite close with her brother Bob Newby, she’s not part of the TV series (and apparently Bob never mentioned her), which gives the play freedom to explore her character more fully.  Bob, who as a grownup in the 1980s on “Stranger Things” worked in Radio Shack here is the founder of the school’s A.V. club and a wizard with gear and gadgets. The show is filled with such foreshadowing– future police chief Jim Hopper here is rebelling against his dad, the current chief, and spends an increasing amount of time with the theater girl, Joyce (the mom of Will Byers on the series). 

There are more characters crammed in, none even close to fully developed, each serving to propel the action forward. The cast therefore rarely gets a chance to distinguish themselves; the star, Louis McCartney, as Henry gives an excellent physical performance but he cranks his performance up so high so early that it has worn a bit thin by the second act when he becomes a pawn in Dr. Brenner’s secret plans. Gabrielle Nevaeh gives a more restrained and fuller performance as Patty, which is crucial because as an outsider to the “Stranger Things” story she becomes a stand-in for the audience.

Still, “First Shadows”  offered enough excellent theatrical moments– with lights, sound, screens, etc– to keep me fairly entertained. And the high school scenes were often charming, especially the ones in which Joyce is running secretive rehearsals for a subversive play while pretending to be readying “Oklahoma” yet again. The highlight is a backstage interrogation scene on the play’s opening in which Hopper (Burke Swanson) attempts to extract a confession from a man (the wrong man, it turns out) suspected of doing heinous things; this scene is played as a screwball farce, like something out of “Noises Off” and it fully works. 

Of course, it’s probably a scene that will be quickly forgotten by the fans of the show and the series, all of whom seemed to walk out of the theater buzzing about the production values, the script’s Easter eggs and just having the chance to spend time with a beloved story in a live setting. While it’s not a given that this show will bring some of these people back to the theater for something more ambitious, stranger things have happened. 

“Stranger Things” runs 2 hours and 45 minutes at the Marquis Theatre.  

Photos: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman