AISLE SAY New York

THE LIGHTNING THIEF

Book by Joe Tracz
Music and Lyrics by Rob Rokicki
Based on the Percy Jackson novels by Rick Riordan
A Production of Theatreworks/USA
Longacre Theatre
Official Website

Reviewed by David Spencer

The Lightning Thief is one of the first, if not the first, offerings of TheatreWorks New York, the commercial arm of TheatreWorks USA. It played a limited off-Broadway engagement two seasons ago, and has returned for another limited engagement, this time on Broadway. It’s a full-length show, and predictably, it’s aimed primarily at younger viewers; but ironically, it’s not among the most sophisticated musicals they’ve ever offered.  It may, however, be among the most aggressively rocked out.  A modern reworking  of Greek god mythology, it’s based on the first of a series of hugely popular novels for Young Readers by Perry Riordan,  about a misfit teenager named Percy Jackson (Chris McCarrell, reprising his off-Broadway role, leading a cast of six, two more of whom are likewise returnees), who discovers he is really the descendent of gods and—shades of Harry Potter et al‚Äìfinds he has super powers, a mission and a quest to go on.

The libretto by Joe Tracz and the music & lyrics by Rob Rokicki hit the ground running and at high pop music octane and rarely pause to calm down or give the audience a breather during the show’s two-hours-including-intermission length.  Basically the story delineates a travel quest, so the narrative is episodic and mostly about  Percy conquering one dark obstacle after another,  personified by beings of evil intent.

When the show was off-Broadway, I wrote this: 

There are no particular harmonic or melodic surprises in the score, it’s all quite familiar within a populist vein, but that seems to be all that’s needed, and indeed all that’s required, to satisfy the target audience  in a musical sense. For some tastes, the script may be a little too meta and self-consciously theatrical, occasionally winking outside the box of verisimilitude, but that too seems to delight the young and family audiences who would seem to make up the bulk of its patrons. More in-depth criticism than that seems a not-particularly-useful exercise, in light of the fact that if you know the books, as most of the audience seems to, you’re riding a wavelength that probably carried you to the theater in the first place. And it seems as if, in satisfying those expectations, the show is doing exactly what it was put together to do.

Under the direction of Steven Brackett, a mostly young cast, most of whom play multiple roles,  attack the material with a breathless, though calculated, gusto on a set far more suggestive then explicit, which is really just a metal frame skeleton with entrances exits and catwalks. In the tradition of all TheatreWorks shows, this one is clearly, eventually, meant to travel (and not just alternate universes).

The most important thing to consider before you attend The Lightning Thief is not how good it may ‚”objectively” be by musical theater standards, but whether or not what I’ve just described will tickle your fancy or that of any youngsters you may bring to the party. 

All of that is still largely true, but add this: After a spate of negative reviews that fairly ambushed the musical upon its remounting on Broadway—remember it did far better when being reviewed as a children’s show, off—I saw a Facebook post from a somewhat obsessive young theatre enthusiast who declared that The Lightning Thief is being treated unfairly, by critics too old to get with it, and that in general, mainstream theatre criticism should finally be handed off to younger writers more clued into the Zeitgeist.

The premise is questionable, although perhaps I would say that, as one of the ‚”oldies” for whom the show is not ideally intended…but taking the argument on its face, I’d counter that reviews are irrelevant to The Lightning Thief, because as a Theatreworks show, it can’t operate according to a standard commercial business model. I suppose it might adjust, if the reviews had been across-the-spectrum raves, but it is currently, as it was last time, a limited engagement; assuming it lasts as long as advertised, for 16 weeks. Four months.

That’s all it needs.

This is a family show built to tour; to play auditoriums, schools theatres, any venue into which it can fit and to whom it can be sold. It already has its off-Broadway reviews to use for promotion. And now the promotion gets to add, ‚”straight from Broadway.”

This engagement is not about making The Lightning Thief a Broadway phenomenon; it’s about upping the ante on Theatreworks cred and about expanding its image beyond the minivan tours that go out with simple modular sets, a maximum of six actors, and a stage manager to run the show and a digital player with pre-recorded instrumental tracks.

And why not? The business of theatre is changing; why shouldn’t a TYA company use Broadway, not as an end, but a means to an end, a tool?

The artistic director of a regional theatre who went way over-budget to successfully produce a show of mine (success = sellout attendance and several extensions, just to keep it factual) told me, ‚”You don’t produce new musicals in a venue like this to make money. You make your money on the season’s smaller productions. You produce musicals because you have in your strategy how they’ll redound to the benefit of the theatre’s reputation, influence and subscription base.”

And those, I’m pretty sure, are the dice being rolled here.

And thus, The Lightning Thief more than lives up to its name…

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