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If you could close out Alicia Keys' big semi-autobiographical musical on Broadway with her hit song, which one would it be? Of course, it would have to be “Empire State of Mind.” That's natural, right? It's as predictable as an R train being delayed due to a signal problem.
“Hell's Kitchen'' is a coming-of-age musical about 17-year-old piano prodigy Ali, featuring great songs old and new by 16-time Grammy winner Ali and a talented cast, but that's just the beginning. It's just that. A safe story that tries to make it seem like it's more important than it actually is.
It wants to be authentic and gritty, with a surprising number of expletives used, including 19 f-bombs, but it ends up being a movie about living on the 42nd floor of a doorman building in Manhattan. It is a portrait of a young and talented woman who is relearning to love. Her mother protects her.
The musical, which opened Saturday at the Shubert Theater, includes remakes of Keys' most famous hits, “Fallin',” “No One,” “Girl on Fire” and “If I Ain't Got You,” as well as , several new works will appear. Songs including the wonderful “Kaleidoscope”.
There's no question that Keys is a first-rate songwriter. It's highly questionable whether playwright Christopher Diaz can create a socially conscious, compelling, and empathetic romantic comedy.
This is truly a female-led show, with Marea Joy Moon in an absolutely stunning lead role. She's funny, giggly, passionate, and high-pitched, a true star and an amazing vocalist. Shoshana Bean, who plays her single prickly mother, makes her songs soar, and Keshia Lewis, who plays the soulful piano teacher, is the show's phenomenal MVP.
When we meet Ali, she knows there's more to life and, as she sings in her new song “The River,” she's a frustrated woman who knows “something's calling me.” I'm a teenager. The first is a boy. He's the lovely Chris Lee who plays a house painter. There's also a reunion with his unreliable father, the very funny Brandon Victor Dixon. But what's calling Ali, of course, is the grand piano in her building's multipurpose room.
The outside of this apartment building in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, set in the early 1990s, has “cockroaches and crack rats/heroin.” However, no criminality has been shown. In the worst case scenario, is this an illegal clamping action? And the police don't actually brutalize citizens who are considered undesirable. They just kind of drive them away. Contrary to the lyrics of a Keys song, this is New York, sanitized for the tourists at the M&M store.
Another reason musicals don't connect perfectly is that much of the music played on stage is fake. It's actually the orchestra tucked into the sides that creates the piano scales and funky percussion. (Even the three bucket drummers on stage are mostly just pretending, which is a shame.) For a musical about singular artists and the importance of music, this feels a bit like a fraud. Masu.
The choreography by Camille A. Brown is strong and fun, using hip-hop vocabulary, and director Michael Greif does a great job of keeping things moving elegantly. But everything but the kitchen sink is thrown in here. A hilarious chorus of two mom friends and two Ali friends, ghosts, mild parental abuse, and a strange obsession with dinner.
The way the songs are integrated: “Girl on Fire” is hysterically punctuated by rap bars, “Fallin'” transforms into a humorous and seductive ballad, and “No One” transforms from a heartbreaking love song to a mother-daughter anthem. is inspiring.
But everyone is waiting for a song about the “concrete jungle” in which “a big light will inspire you”. It happens right after he sees a young woman cuddling on a couch high above the city he will soon conquer. If you want to walk past the doorman and follow your dreams, you can too.
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Follow Mark Kennedy online.
