Theater review
THE LOST BOYS
Two hours and 40 minutes, with one intermission. At the Palace Theatre, 160 W. 47th Street.
At long last, a vampire musical that doesn’t suck.
A captivating and moody rock show about teenage fangst, “The Lost Boys,” flew open Sunday night at the Palace Theatre and brought an end to the decades-old curse unleashed by a string of unfortunate aughts Broadway mega-flops: “Dracula,” “Dance of the Vampires” and “Lestat.”
That tacky trilogy of terror has been the target of mockery for so long that simply walking into a new entry in the singin’ undead genre is scarier than anything Count Orlok does in “Nosferatu.”
Even more frightening, lousy “Lestat” also played the Palace. Eeeek!
But once the lights dim and a striking opening scene commences — in which a cop is violently killed midair by a group of rocking vamps — it becomes immediately clear that there is nothing here to ridicule this time. There are plenty of unbelievable sights to gasp at, though.
Directed by comeback kid Michael Arden, “The Lost Boys” is a serious and ambitious effort of spectacle and heartfelt adventure that doesn’t look or behave like any musical I have seen before.
Without actually being immersive, the intoxicating 1980s arcade atmosphere washes over the audience sensorily, with a three-level crypt set by Dane Laffrey that uses the Palace’s extreme height to its winning advantage and lighting by Jen Schriever and Arden that’s so gorgeous it should be billed above the title.
And the magical aerial stunts — used for everything from high-flying music solos to vampiric sneak attacks — would make Sandy Duncan green with envy.
This show, in every aspect, goes breathtakingly gargantuan. Good. Suffice it to say, “City Center Encores presents ‘The Lost Boys’” wouldn’t go over so well.
But on Broadway, bigness has been greatly missed.
Much like the 1987 movie the musical is based on wrestled the undead into the present long before “Twilight” was so much as a twinkle, so too does the show, with a book by David Hornsby and Chris Hoch and a score by the band The Rescues, swap Victorian Era castles and thick European accents for 1980s California; Gothic for goth.
A family of three craving a new life moves into the coastal town of Santa Carla, California, where rebel youths misbehave on the boardwalk and there’s been a worrying spike in unsolved murders. What oh what could be causing them?!
Sad, seventeen-year-old Michael (LJ Benet) is looking for purpose while geeky 14-year-old Sam (Benjamin Pajak) obsesses over Rob Lowe and buries himself in comic books. Mom Lucy (Shoshana Bean) needs a job — and a husband.
Michael soon finds himself in with the wrong crowd, a spiky rock band headed by menacing, platinum-blond David (Ali Louis Bourzgui). The group’s late-night gigs must be the reason they only ever go out after dark, right?
Bourzgui, who was brilliant as the title role in “The Who’s Tommy” two years ago, solidifies himself as one of Broadway’s most enticing new stars. An enchanter, his smooth-talking David is Beelzebub by way of Bowie, ensnaring Michael into his clutches with beckoning eyes and a rich baritone.
Kiefer Sutherland, the original David, didn’t croon a note in the movie, but turning the vamps into guitarists and drummers naturally drops music into this world and eliminates the insanity of Dracula breaking out into a power belt. There’s also an inherent hellfire to punk rock that ups their threat. What’s more anti-establishment than a vampire?
The Rescues’ songs have energy and attitude, even it there are a few too many. Look, they won’t wind up on any playlists alongside “Gypsy” and “The Sound of Music,” but the tunes contribute a brooding, heavy-eyeliner vibe, at times channelling Evanescence as much as contemporary musical theater, and they work harmoniously with the design and acting. The score, with a haunting main theme, is not undead weight.
The band’s jams are joined by the usual character numbers. A serene one called “Belong to Someone” figures into the show’s stunner of a defining moment, when Benet’s Michael lets go of the train tracks above and sings “for so long I’ve been lost and looking for the light” as he floats weightlessly above the stage. Incredible, really.
Benet, our in-flight entertainment making his Broadway debut, has teen idol looks and a strong, pure and emotional sound.
And belting Bean, whose role is slightly above a plot device, gets a rousing reclaiming-my-girlhood duet with new boss and possible beau Max (Paul Alexander Nolan) called “Wild.”
As Michael hangs out (upside down on occasion) with his sinister new pals and a girl named Star (Maria Wirries) and Lucy flirts with her man, Sam makes an alarming discovery with the help of the Frog Brothers (Miguel Gil and Jennifer Duka): Santa Carla’s crawling with vampires.
As Sam, 15-year-old Pajak, who just four years ago was little Winthrop in “The Music Man,” proves he’s a lot more than a guileless River City child. He’s a gifted comedian and impressive singer with a command of the stage far beyond his years. His Act 2 number, “Superpower,” is wacky in retrospect, yet sweet and bright in a show with a lot of shadows.
The trio’s mission to find and stop the bloodsuckers is perilous and scrappy with the lil “Indiana Jones” quality of “The Goonies.” And the manner in which the plot’s mysteries unfold onstage is much more compelling than in the film. I kept thinking that this is exactly what strident and unpleasant “Stranger Things: First Shadow” should have been.
What a wild year Arden’s had. He started out by directing the first new musical of the season, “The Queen of Versailles,” which was also one of the worst. Though, there are plenty of folks in the blame line ahead of him for that.
Now, with the final show of the 2025-26 crop, he’s delivered the best.
And that show— I can’t believe I’m writing this — is a vampire musical
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
