HELLO, EVERYONE! I SAW THE BTTF MUSICAL YESTERDAY, AND AM READY TO POST SOME (SEMI) COHERENT THOUGHTS!
[Fair warning that some things here may spoil parts of the show.]
• First things first: It was so good. It was so, so, very good. Incredible show. I'd been hearing great things about the show since it first came out in London, and I've been listening to the music since it dropped, so I pretty much went in knowing I'd like it but it still managed to be even better than I thought.
• Just the setup of the theater itself and the ambiance prior to it starting was so cool. The way everything is lit blue and there's all the electrical zapping and humming. THE CONSTANT TICKING OF CLOCKS THAT FILLED THE THEATER. Nothing had even happened yet, and I was like, "This is such a good show."
• My one big cause for hesitation was Casey playing Marty. I know absolutely nothing about the guy, but Marty is just so dear to my heart, and MJF's energy and physicality isn't something easily captured. I had my doubts about seeing someone try to bring Marty to Broadway, but Casey walked onto the stage, called out, "Doc?" and I went, "Yeah, okay. There's Marty."
• For real, though, Casey was phenomenal as Marty. He had the vocal inflection down. The right amount of crackliness. Very good balance of cool kid and disoriented mess.
• Um. HUGH COLES?!? Talk about brilliant casting. I mean it when I say that he somehow seemed more George than George from the movie. The audience reacted with a sense of awe when he started speaking and moving around the stage. It was like Crispin Glover had been plucked straight from the film and injected with More Georgeness. When he did the laugh, the audience went nuts. His physical acting and the way he captured George's gestures perfectly was amazing to watch.
• As I'd expected, Musical Doc is ten times more chaotic and unhinged than Movie Doc. Roger Bart's comedic timing is impeccable. He earned himself frequent howling laughter from the audience from the moment he appeared on stage.
• His "Good thing I kept this radiation suit from my Manhattan Project days" line was a nice touch.
• "Despite my fear of heights, I was standing on my toilet," was such a gem of a line.
• THE DELOREAN. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE DELOREAN. I had no idea how they were going to depict a car speeding to 88mph on a small stage, but THEY DID IT. Astounding. Honestly might be the coolest effects I've ever seen done on a stage. Also, I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the addition of it being voice-activated and talking, but it worked nicely!
• The musical obviously had to trim some parts of the movie—and even omit parts entirely—but it was done so well that you either didn't even notice or miss they were gone. The change from George being hit by a car to simply falling out of the tree was one of these changes. (Marty's under the tree trying to catch him, btw, which is how he ends up getting knocked out)
• I couldn't tell if this was an ad-lib from Casey, but when he was trying to get his pants back on in the Baines house scene, he started struggling a bit with the tangled suspenders that were wrapped around one of the legs of the jeans and muttered in frustration, "Why do I wear suspenders??" Very funny little moment.
• Great chemistry between Bart and Casey. The connection between Doc and Marty was THERE. The musical GOT IT RIGHT. So many hilarious moments between them in the form of completely unintelligible banter, where they're just talking over each other and having like...verbal tennis matches of nonsense. It's hard to describe in writing, but trust me, it was so good. It went something like this:
Doc: "Marty!"
Marty: "Doc!"
Both Simultaneously: *literal gibberish*
• There's a beautiful little addition to the scene when Marty shows up at Doc's house in 1955 and tries to convince him he's from the future. After Doc asks him to take him to this supposed "time machine" Marty goes, "Sure, hang on, I just gotta grab some flashlights." Then he goes straight to a cabinet and quickly retrieves two flashlights without a second thought, to which Doc is like, "How did you know they were in there??" Marty knows!! He knows exactly where the flashlights are because of course he does!!
• Perhaps one of the funniest moments of the show was right at the end of the "Future Boy" number, where the music stops and there's that breaking of the fourth wall moment. Doc and Marty look around in confusion at all the backup singers and dancers awkwardly standing around his house (one of the singers continues dancing/singing long after the others has stopped lol) and Doc wordlessly opens the door so they can all scurry out.
• Doc's dream of visiting the year 2020 where everything is perfect and there's "no disease" got some very loud laughter from the audience.
• Oh. Oh, the scene at Doc's house at night after the demonstration with the toy car. The way everything gets solemn for a moment, and Doc is doubting himself and worried about failing. Marty's lovely little speech about how everything will be okay because he believes in him. He trusts Doc. He knows it'll work and they'll get him home. The way Marty is the one looking after and taking care of Doc in that moment. When he asks, "Do you need anything, Doc? Can I make you a sandwich?" And then when he says softly, "Goodnight, Doc. Pleasant dreams."
THE MUSICAL GETS IT RIGHT. THE WARMTH. THE LOVE. THIS WAS SUCH A NICE ADDITION.
• "PUT YOUR MIND TO IT" !!!! I loved this sequence so, so much. Marty gets to strut his stuff while George flails around trying to imitate him. It was funny, the choreography was great, and we get such a nice Marty and George hug at the end! Why didn't they hug in the movie??
• The audience was super engaged and reactive through the whole show, but it noticeably ramped up in the latter part—starting with the night of the dance. There was such an excitement as people anticipated George swooping in to take down Biff and protect Lorraine. When Biff went down, the audience whooped and clapped and cheered so much.
• EARTH ANGEL! THE MOMENT GEORGE AND LORRAINE KISS. It was just like the movie. The music suddenly swelled, Marvin belted out, "The vision of your happiness", George and Lorraine kissed, and the audience. Lost. Their. Minds. It was as if people were experiencing the story for the first time—that's how strong the reaction was. So cool.
• Audience also went wild at the start of Johnny B. Goode. That was a neat sequence as well. Huge laughs at the "But your kids are gonna love it" line.
• The clocktower scene! Marty handing Doc the letter and saying, "I wrote you a thank-you note; don't read it until you get home!!" LOL. So many amazing effects going on in this one. For those of you who have seen the show, you probably remember Doc running up the clocktower stairs, right? Did the audience nearly die of laughter like they did at my showing? That was truly one of the top 5 funniest moments of the show, in my opinion. It had me giggling hours later once I was home. For those of you who have not seen the show, I don't think I can adequately put into words what was happening during this scene, but it was incredibly funny. It's good there wasn't any dialogue during it, because no one would have heard it with the way everyone was laughing.
• The fire trails on stage got quite the awed reaction. Super cool.
• The hug! We get our Doc and Marty hug at the end! I'm so glad they realized that moment was missing from the movie.
• I liked the shift from Marty waking up at home to him waking up on the bench in town instead. The "George McFly Day" part was a fun addition, and it flowed nicely into Marty's "Power of Love" performance.
• THE CAR FLEW. IT FLEW UP IN THE AIR AND THE WHEELS TURNED IN AND IT WENT OUT OVER THE AUDIENCE. HOW DID THEY DO THAT. IT DID A COMPLETE ROTATION UPSIDE DOWN WHILE CASEY AND BART WAVED TO PEOPLE. If anyone knows of any videos or articles explaining how they did things with the car, please let me know because I can't find anything and I would love to know how they did it! You couldn't see anything holding the car, and i'm so confused! The effects were so good.
• Love how, when the show ended, the giant screen on the stage just said, "Make like a tree and get outta here."
...I think those are all my thoughts. I was planning to write up a post with just a couple of bullet points of highlights and instead. Well. This is what you get from me, and if you've followed my blog for any length of time, you know that. But really, the show was so well done. I had a blast. I bought a pin that says, "Whoa, this is heavy" and I'm going to put it on my denim jacket :)
For those who are planning to see the musical, I hope this helps hype you up for it. And for those who can't see it, I hope this gives you a good look at what it's like!
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Doctober 2023 prompt #29: 2023
Warning: Long post
I dragged my bestie to go see the Broadway musical version of bttf earlier this year. IT WAS WONDERFUL. 💝💝💝
We watched it back in August, so my memory isn't the clearest and I'll probably forget something, but this is a long enough post as is.
SPOILERS FOR THE MUSICAL BELOW
I mean, its just the movie but in musical format, but they add things here and there that surprised me, so if u like to be surprised... there's your warning
My friend and I sat in the middle of Row F (highlighted in green above). We wanted to be close, but not super close to have to look up at a weird angle. It was crazy to be so close AND SUPER WORTH IT. When the actors look out into the audience you can really feel like they're looking at you (from their POV they prolly dont see anything because the lights) its a really cool experience! 🤩🤩
OK SO MY FAVORITE LINE FROM THE MUSICAL THAT HAD ME ROLLING BECAUSE IT WAS SO UNEXPECTED WAS: "Is this what they call 'white trash'???" I won't spoil the full context bUT HE WAS REFERRING TO MARTY AT THAT MOMENT.
The Earth Angel scene made me love and appreciate the scene in the movie, and the song EVEN MORE THAN I ALREADY DID. THEY EVEN BROUGHT OUT THE BUBBLES AND IT WAS A WHOLE VIBE (yet another reason why I was grateful we sat in the front). They nailed the execution of the scene, people were cheering and everything during the kiss. Even I got hyped, whereas before, when I was just watching the movie, I was like 'aight.'
The atmosphere in the theater hit different frfr. When Marty and Doc reunited at the end and hugged, I let out a little, "Yay!!" They had such good chemistry on stage, my favorite moments of them were when one of them would say something crazy and then the other would go, "What?" And then the other would go, "What??" And confusion ensues.
AND THEN, AS IF UNEXPECTED STUFF DIDN'T ALREADY HAPPEN, THE MOST UNEXPECTED THING HAPPENED AT THE END. THE DELOREAN FLEW.
IT FLEW.
INTO THE CROWD.
RIGHT ABOVE US.
AND THAT MADE IT SUPER WORTH IT TO SIT CLOSE TO THE FRONT. I wonder what it looked like from the balcony though...
Can we just take a moment to appreciate Hugh Coles??? He single-handedly made me appreciate the character of George after seeing his performance.
Look at this mad lad, he got all the photos of Crispin Glover on his mirror 😱😱😱 manifested this man frfr
He's one yarn ball away from an 'I'm crazy' wall
The SASS
Man said 🚶♂️💅 AND IM HERE FOR IT
Ok, last pic, the matching pose 🤩💘
FR HE NAILED THE CHARACTER PERFORMANCE, IT WAS INSANE. You really gotta see it to believe it. mf from west end too so imagine my surprise when I heard him in an interview with an accent ☠️☠️☠️
Literally me throughout the whole musical:
I knew I was going to like the musical, but what I listed out here is basically the reason why I LOVED the musical. I love surprises so that's a big part of it as well.
Fave song: Used to be 'Put Your Mind To It' then it was 'It Works' but I think I settled on 'Something About That Boy' I just love duets and overlapping lines in songs. [But we all know the best song is Cake 💅]
TL,DR: The bestie and I went to see bttf the musical. i am a changed man... and now im here 🙃
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