When Theatre Forgets Its Form

I attended the Seattle debut of the Back to the Future Broadway musical tour to prepare for its audio-described performances at the Paramount. I’m probably not the only devout theatergoer who’s expressed skepticism toward the development and presence of this movie-made-musical within the canon of staged experiences. What I witnessed between 10:00-11:00pm on a Tuesday evening confirmed my suspicions, but maybe not for the same reasons you’d think.

If you’re guessing that the aforementioned time window featured a series of impressive, memorable songs, then you’re unfortunately incorrect. (No disrespect to the creators; the content was more formulaic than catchy).

If you’re guessing that the performance concluded in a crisp fashion and sent us home early to bed, then you’re unfortunately wrong again.

If you’re guessing that the DeLorean, the show’s focal prop/set piece (and likely the most expensive asset, and biggest bane of the cast and crew’s life), was part of an unidentified tech issue that significantly delayed our bedtimes, then you are unfortunately correct.

At 9:59pm, the show’s dialogue, lighting cues, whizzing scenic animations, and sound effects barreled toward the big climax of Marty McFly’s escape from 1955 to return to 1985—if he could catch a precisely-timed lightning bolt. Doc sang from above with his outstretched arms, trying to reconnect the cables at the infamous clock face. A black curtain abruptly descended and we all thought they’d pulled a clever prank on us when the phrase “Please stand by while we adjust the space-time continuum” illuminated the screen.

After several minutes, the curtain went up, the car revved to the requisite 88mph, then it—just—kinda—stopped in place. The downstage scrim with its “space-time continuum” request returned. I felt like I was waiting in a repeatedly-paused roller coaster at an amusement park (hi, Disneyland) while I watched the screen pulse its projected message in neon blue and yellow letters. In such situations, my survivor instinct looks around and wonders, Are we gonna get out of this…?

The decent-then-meager-sized crowd shifted in growing confusion and agitation throughout the varied lengths of downtime between each redo. The crew made at least three consecutive attempts to rewind, revive, and complete one very short segment of an action sequence—albeit the climax. Was it the car alone that malfunctioned? Seems so. How and why? We don’t know. Did they fix it? Still waiting…

I won’t go down a research rabbit hole to answer whether a cult classic movie has ever become a successful staged production. (…We all heard about Spiderman The Musical, right?) The danger in the task of adapting a movie to live theatre is a subconscious (nostalgic?) expectation that the staged version ought to thrill an audience with the same effects as the original film.

Let’s take another pseudo pause to think about key difference(s) between these storytelling mediums:

Film = a process of capturing visuals to then clip together as a sequential story arc, and later present on a flat, two-dimensional square screen.

Theater = a process of people embodying a story, played out in real time (seconds, minutes, hours), and usually presented within a three-dimensional cube (with one of six sides removed for audience visibility).

In other words, live theater is a-live: we humans—both on stage and in audience—are bound by physics. And breath. A production can push the pause button on itself, but it can’t pause thousands of people who invested their dollars and minutes. Plus their babysitters’ fees and bedtimes. And homeward transit… The series of dominoes clatter as the clock relentlessly clicks onward.

In other other words, big mechanized tricks don’t matter as much on stage as they do in the CGI-laden world of film. The fact that the production team made such determined efforts to show off one little segment is somewhat ironic for a musical which already nodded self-referential humor in Act One to the fact that this is all Make Believe. I won’t spoil it, but I assure you, the moment of which I speak is playful and cheeky, and the audience absolutely ate it up.

To that end, the director and/or producers must’ve noted the shrieks of delighted audience laughter when a character runs in place on stage, occasionally pivoting their direction, to create the illusion of climbing many stairs up multiple floors. Spoiler…this bit remains in Act Two. Old-fashioned pantomime still slays in 2024! Why? Because audiences agree to suspend their disbelief in a theatrical experience. It’s part of the program!

You’ll inevitably get a laugh and audience buy-in when you acknowledge the reality of the situation! In a faux stair-climbing bit, there’s a mutual acknowledgement: the actor conveys their action/intention on flat ground without a literal staircase structure; audience lets it pass with a figurative fingertip-to-forehead, like “I get what you did there.”

Okay, maybe the production “acknowledged” the climactic interruption via the projected signage, but I wonder if that more so nods to their anticipation of (and an attempt to cover up) an iffy, recurring technical issue. For a broken-prop-car contingency plan, they could’ve prepared a more active, energized iteration of a placeholder—nay, a bridge—to jump the gap and keep the story in motion. A stationary sign pleading for patience, screeching the show to a dead. halt. multiple. times. should be reserved only for dire circumstances (ahem, rest in peace, Spiderman).

If I was the director dealing with an unpredictable prop, I’d want to keep said diversion within the realm of theatre. Ditch the tech and go third grade school play on us! It’s a musical comedy, so anything goes! Here’s a few freebie ideas:

• Doc, in or out of character, with or without the ensemble, rolls out a chalkboard and pointer to narrate the intended action sequence—if it hadn’t been thwarted by a tech malfunction. Then, lights up on Marty successfully landing in 1985.
• Ditching the full-size car prop, Marty instead carries a small cardboard silhouette of the DeLorean and plays the action sequence with full commitment (lights, sound, and projected effects continue uninterrupted).
• Combine the above two options in a mini melodrama play-within-a-play. To bypass extra props, use the ensemble actors to physically convey the DeLorean, clock tower, lightning bolt, date passage, etc.

Near the forty-five minute mark of awaiting a conclusion (or resolution…or absolution), my husband pulled a fun analogy from his noggin to liken this TBD outcome to the climax of the early 90s film Cool Runnings in which (spoiler!) the bobsled breaks during the team’s Olympic race down the icy chutes. We few who remained in the Back to the Future audience wished for the show to pick up its proverbial sled and carry it over the finish line so we could cheer through a classic Seattle standing ovation, this time in collective celebration that everyone persevered for an extra hour of a weeknight! We wanted the actors to resolve the story they worked so hard to tell—even though we knew the ending—because there was bound to be a rockin’ musical encore after the bows.