DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
No other show in my memory builds to its climax like Back to the Future. And what a climax it is. A spectacular blend of live action, lighting, projection and props that will have you believing the DeLorean is actually speeding across the stage at 88 miles per hour.
That doesn’t mean the show is perfect. Music from the opening scenes that take place in 1985 move the story along, but that’s about it. However, once we’re back in 1955, the pace picks up and Cartreze Tucker as (future mayor) Goldie Wilson gets the evening’s first rousing ovation with the song “Gotta Start Somewhere.”
Don Stephenson and Lucas Hallauer make a good pair as Doc and Marty McFly. They’re just enough Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox to give a hint of what we loved from the film and not too much to resemble parody. Hallauer does a great job with Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard’s music as well as a few classics — especially “The Power of Love” — from the film.
While actors often play multiple roles on stage, Zan Berube and Mike Bindeman play dual roles as Marty’s parents and pull it off well. The scene where Marty has to make out with his mother to encourage his father to kiss her at a specified time to put the time continuum back into place is brilliantly executed, maybe better than in the film.
And speaking of the movie, co-creators Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis took their film script and adapted it well for the stage without falling into the pitfalls of some other of my favorites that have become Broadway musicals. For whatever reason, the cockroach scene is mangled in the stage version of Victor Victoria and in the musical edition of , the title character doesn’t become a soap opera star. In Back to the Future, they stick to the story we love.
The effects in the show are breathtaking. When the DeLorean first appears, it spins onto the stage out of nowhere. Since the car can’t race across the stage — or even really move much — to create the illusion of speed, everything else moves.
And during the performance I saw, everything moved perfectly — except once. Two parts of Doc’s lab slide across the stage, one piece from each side, and meet in the middle. The scene change had already worked perfectly earlier in the show, but in Act II, only one piece slid in.
Doc and Marty begin their scene until things go wrong. A projection is off-center. A needed prop isn’t there. And Stephenson starts ad libbing to the delight of the audience, but also alerting the crew to get the scene on stage.
The second half of the set slides on stage and there’s a knock on the door. “Good thing the door’s there now,” Stephenson says, not quite ready to let the situation go, and he seamlessly slides back into the script following wild applause. Live theater. Things can go wrong — especially when so much technology is involved and the show is dismantled and reassembled every couple of weeks.
Back to the Future opened in London in 2022 where it was nominated for seven Olivier Awards and won Best Musical. Broadway didn’t give the show the same reception when it opened in New York two years later. The show was nominated for only two Tonys — best featured actor and best scenic design. It won neither. The show’s still running in London, but recently closed in New York.
While there’s no award for special effects, the show deserves one. The finale is amazing to watch. Doc running up the stairs in the clock tower — without stepping off the stage is as funny as it is brilliant. The car speeding across the stage without moving from center stage was exciting to watch. Doc hanging from the clock — was the clock and the actor hanging from it a projection or a prop in front of a backdrop? I’m still not sure.
And the DeLorean flying off stage as it goes into the future — well, it was a scene I was hoping they’re reproduce but was sure they wouldn’t be able to pull it off. But they did — with Doc and Marty inside the car.
The show runs at The Music Hall at Fair Park through March 30.