'Stranger Things: The First Shadow' Broadway review — hit Netflix show becomes an astonishing stage spectacle
Read our review of Stranger Things: The First Shadow on Broadway, a new play set 30 years before the events of the hit Netflix series Stranger Things.
With its throng of bulb-bursting lights, rivers of fog, actors levitating in midair, a constantly rotating set, and a towering monster that seems to emerge from the stage itself, Stranger Things: The First Shadow is, for better or worse, a Broadway theme park attraction. As with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the recently closed Back to the Future, audiences go for the opportunity to experience a beloved brand for 3 hours with spectacular stagecraft, bright lights, and ear-splitting noises. And on those terms, The First Shadow succeeds.
Written by Kate Trefry (from a story by Trefry, Jack Thorne, and Stranger Things showrunners and creators the Duffer Brothers) and directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker and two-time Tony Award winner Stephen Daldry (with co-direction by Justin Martin), Stranger Things: The First Shadow is a lot of show. It is at once possession horror, family melodrama, high school dramedy, Cold War thriller, and haunted house nightmare, lurching from one tone to the next scene by scene. It is astonishing simply for its scale, and never boring, if seldom technically or dramatically satisfying.
First Shadow recycles the Netflix show’s fixation on adolescent anxiety, outsider identity, and parental failure, also incorporating an element of post-World War II PTSD that in some ways grounds the theatrical bombast. To the play’s credit, protagonist Henry (a truly spellbinding Louis McCartney) overhearing his parents fighting registers differently than on TV. The familial dysfunction is much more visceral because the audience can feel how it changes the air.
McCartney’s go-for-broke performance, as both an ungainly school weirdo and ventriloquized vessel for a demon, amplifies this sense of immediacy. McCartney brings subtlety and nuance to the show, with arms and legs akimbo conveying more drama and emotion in certain moments than the special effects. He wades through the overstuffed production and finds a core melancholy in Henry that allows the demonic and psychopathic aspects of the character, as well as his wanderings in the Upside Down netherworld, to be dramatically legible even if the plot strains at that task.
There’s the occasional feeling of disappointment that the show doesn’t lean less on the theatrics and focus on the richer themes in Trefry’s script, like Henry’s fear of hurting the girl he likes, Patty (Gabrielle Nevaeh), and how that relates to his relationship to his mother, or Patty’s own self-conception as an orphan in search of her absent mom. But Stranger Things: The First Shadow was probably never going to dig deep into these ideas. It was always going to be too busy dazzling to let its audience into the real darkness.
Stranger Things: The First Shadow summary
Henry Creel (Louis McCartney) and his family move to Indiana, leaving behind a mysterious past in Nevada they hope remains under wraps. While the awkward Henry is haunted by bizarre nightmares, amplifying the bullying he faces at his new school, he finds kinship with fellow outsider Patty (Gabrielle Neveah).
Henry is soon enlisted by classmate Joyce (Alison Jaye) as she tries to mount her own play, but the production is derailed as the students notice dead animals turning up around the neighborhood. Henry’s nightmares might hold the key to these mysterious deaths, and the world these nightmares create offer insight into who Henry really is.
What to expect at Stranger Things: The First Shadow
Miriam Buether’s paradoxically elaborate and yet simple set is aided by Jamie Harrison and Chris Fisher’s visual effects, ably transforming the stage from a high school gymnasium to a hellish underworld, while also eliciting gasps for blood, electrical bursts, and actors levitating on the stage. Horror is relatively uncommon on Broadway stages, and Stranger Things: The First Shadow is a novel attempt at bringing the genre to audiences.
What audiences are saying about Stranger Things: The First Shadow
As of publication, Stranger Things: The First Shadow has a 93% audience approval rating on the review aggregator Show-Score, compiled from 121 reviews. Theatregoers called the play entertaining and absorbing, praising the special effects and appeal for Stranger Things fans.
- “Great effects and staging. Mostly great all around.” - Show-Score user Robert7281 aka
- “PRO: Stunning visual and aural effects overwhelm both story line & audience appreciation. Energetic commitment from large cast. Some knowledge of series helpful. CON: The true alien(nation) is the teenage angst/insecurity which is lost for all the showy effects.” - Show-Score user Richard129440
- “Fans of the tv show might enjoy. For others, hard to follow the characters, tedious and silly high school scenes. Special effects driven: loud and bloody. Attempt at a touching ending was unearned.” - Show-Score user glenn m 6154
Read more audience reviews of Stranger Things: The First Shadow on Show-Score.
Who should see Stranger Things: The First Shadow
- Those looking for an unhinged (complimentary) performance should check out Louis McCartney, who is able to embody both an awkward teeneger and a monster from another world.
- Audiences excited by technical special effects will have much to be delighted by, like the lighting, its playful depths on the stage, and the retro ‘50s aesthetic.
- Stranger Things fans are obviously in for a treat to see how the show connects to the existing mythology. Alongside Henry Creel, other characters from the TV show who appear in the stage play include teenage versions of Joyce Byers (then Maldonado), Jim Hopper, and Bob Newby.
Learn more about Stranger Things: The First Shadow
For an evening out, Stranger Things: The First Shadow is an above-average experience on account of its wild scale, deranged theatrics, and impressive thrills. But what ties its bluster together is a truly staggering performance from Louis McCartney, who finds the real and painful drama within the Netflix-sanctioned haunted house ride.
Photo credit: Stranger Things: The First Shadow on Broadway. (Photos by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
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