***** The Lost Boys
Peak stage artistry and top talent send this revenant storyline aloft
LJ Benet as Michael Emerson in The Lost Boys. Photo: Matthew Murphy
Vampirism was in the air long before a sometime drama critic wrote the book that put the undead fiend permanently on the cultural map. Little did Bram Stoker imagine what a massive cottage industry he would launch in publishing his fussy/creepy epistolary novel Dracula in 1897. Of the many manifestations to date, I cherish Edward Gorey’s 1977 stage set, Klaus Kinski’s 1979 Nosferatu, and now a new, lavish Broadway rendition, light on gore and heavy on familial redemption. If you like your crepuscular cannibalism tasteful and relatable, you’re in for a treat.
Drawing on the 1987 film, writers David Hornsby and Chris Hoch – with help from director Michael Arden – have come up with a stage version that’s a touch tamer and a marvel of stagecraft. Quite aside from the dazzling aerial choreography (the winged nocturnal feeders zip about in what must be a cat’s-cradle of guywires), Dane Laffrey’s scenery sets a new bar for elegant complexity. A whole array of environments – creepy old house, boardwalk, video store, playground gone to rust, abandoned ironworks – materialize every which way like extensions of a gizmo-packed Swiss Army knife.
The cast takes full advantage. LJ Benet, in his Broadway debut, perfectly calibrates the role of Michael Emerson, who – having survived years of targeted abuse by his father (scarily portrayed mid-script) – is ready to cut loose in a new setting: the post-hippie paradise that is punk-era California.
Michael is unabashedly emo (Benet keeps the tortured soul bit just enough under wraps), and a sucker for a parallel local lost girl, Star (Maria Wirries). As Sam Emerson, Michael’s emergingly gay teen brother, Benjamin Pajak fulfills the promise he showed as a kid in Oliver! and The Music Man. Emboldened by a pair of rabidly PC vampire hunters (Jennifer Duka is hilarious as the seemingly female half of the “Frog Brothers,” who goes by the name of Alan), Sam steps up to lead the counter-charge.
The rest of the heavy lifting among the thus-far un-undead (but are they?) falls to Shoshana Bean as Lucy Emerson – yet another downtrodden but plucky divorcée mom (Bean is livelier here than in Hell’s Kitchen, especially when recalling Lucy’s “Wild” days) – and her boss-turned-suitor, video shop owner Max (Paul Alexander Nolan). Why Lucy consents to hang out with Max after he professes his admiration for Goldwater is a mystery, but the plot must progress.
In much the same way that unseen stagehands hoist the bloodsuckers hither and yon, Ali Louis Bourzgui seizes the stage as head vampire David. Latching onto Michael as a potential acolyte and not just fast food, David cultivates the boy, seduces him – not overtly sexually but exactly the way that a charismatic opportunist might draw in an unsuspecting mark.
Emotional undercurrents, splashy stage effects, superlative singers knocking out strong songs by The Rescues – it all comes together in a show that arrived heralded as a guaranteed hit and actually proves to be one.
Details: The Lost Boys, to November 22. Ten and up is the recommended age, but you’re the best judge of your child’s taste and tolerance.