Back To The Future: Below the Speed Limit by Huxley Westemeier

I don’t need a time machine to notice how many ‘80s, ‘90s and 2000s movies have been adapted into Broadway productions recently. What’s with that? A lot of popular movies- think Beetlejuice, Mean Girls, The Lion King, Clue- have all undergone their musical phase. My biggest takeaway from this stream of adaptations: it’s challenging to adapt a well-known movie for the stage. Expectations are high. Going into Back To The Future, a new tour of the musical currently on Broadway, I’ll admit that my expectations were indeed high. I’d heard about the stunning visual effects, and the car (oh, the car!). The time-traveling sequences are expertly implemented, but honestly, everything else was downright painful to watch. It was half-baked caricatures of the movie’s stellar cast, a set design consisting of static images projected onto an empty stage, and forgettable music that was just plain tiresome. It felt like two very different productions: a blend between a rough high school production of Oklahoma! and a high-budget Universal Studios theme park ride.

Let’s talk about that car. It’s a full-scale set piece that can move around quickly (think a Roomba with a model car on it). When it accelerates to 88mph, projectors display a street scene on the LED back wall and on a transparent backdrop at the front of the stage. The car moves around from side to side while the screens display motion effects. It truly feels like we’re watching the car zooming through city streets. There’s one moment at the end where the car flies up 20 feet off the stage, goes towards the audience, turns around, and zooms back into the distance to the triumphant score by composer Alan Silvestri from the original film. This is accomplished with a secondary car on a black robot arm- it is extremely convincing and was the only immersive moment for me. These amazing effects rely on screens and an open stage which makes non-car scenes awkward. Throughout 90% of the show, the stage is empty except for a small house facade, a pair of lockers, and wallpaper on the back screen giving the cast very little to work with. 

I know how much work goes into performing on a Broadway tour- having been in one myself- but I was let down by the cast. It’s not entirely their fault, as direction by John Rando led to an overwhelming amount of references to modern times and large song/dance numbers that don’t propel the story, but nothing felt fresh or exciting. Caden Brauch, who played Marty, made it feel like I was watching a flat action-figure parody of Michael J. Fox. Everything was technically right, but always an imitation.  The famous Emmet Brown or Doc, played by Don Stephenson, tried to play up the eccentric nature of Doc by being extremely campy with his deliveries and physicalities. Watching actors on an empty stage attempt to emulate a story from an iconic movie simply isn’t immersive if the chemistry isn’t there. It falls flat. 

Overall- don’t see this show. Yes, there’s a fantastic car, but it isn’t worth going back in time for the 3 minutes of car scenes. With a different score, different direction, and the same car this show could go far. But for now? Stay home and watch the movie because this show is out of time.