Who Is a ‘Back to the Future’ Musical For?

Travel back in time, and you’ll find an axiom of practical wisdom: “Never teach a cow to sing. It wastes time, and annoys the cow.”

At Back to the Future: The Musical, which opened Thursday night in San Francisco, the cow is the audience of Back to the Future fans. The futile singing lesson is the format of musical theater itself.

Who wanted a Back to the Future musical? That was my first question, and the only answer I could surmise was: someone who wants to milk a beloved franchise for even more money. Once the curtain rose, and I watched this would-be 88 mph production grind to a halt over and over with introspective singing, I had several other questions, too.

Primarily, why would any Broadway producer believe Back to the Future fans will like musical theater? The show knows its audience is a bunch of Gen X nerds; it serves up Pac-Man and Frankenstein references, a Star Trek joke and a Star Wars sight gag. These are not people planning their summer vacations around Patti LuPone’s performances.

But surely, you say, there must be some crossover fanbase. And I would say: yes! That person is me! I was the prime age of 10 when Back to the Future came out, I watched it approximately 137 times on a grainy VHS dub, and also grew up to love musical theater. I even adore a few other trashy musical adaptations from movies, like Mean Girls: The Musical and Legally Blonde: The Musical.

But Mean Girls: The Musical and Legally Blonde: The Musical are based on camp classics, and thus have a built-in audience of musical theater fans. Back to the Future: The Musical spends too much time on navel-gazing ballads and character development for anyone, but especially for those from the Van Halen generation. We already know these characters; I counted at least two people on opening night wearing Marty McFly-inspired puffy orange vests. Just be funny!

Instead, we get George McFly, looking through binoculars in a tree, somberly singing that “My myopia is my utopia.”

It’s a problem of earnestness, and it starts to make sense when you learn that the musical was co-written by Glenn Ballard, who shot to fame as the co-writer of Alanis Morissette’s album Jagged Little Pill. If the producers were looking for a good fit, they really should have gotten Weird Al.

“OK, fine,” you say. “Surely there must have been some good things about it.”

You’re right. As Marty McFly, Lucas Hallauer mimics Michael J. Fox’s mannerisms and speaking style with astounding accuracy; he moves, scoots and squeaks just like Fox. “Gotta Start Somewhere,” sung by Cartreze Tucker as the diner custodian and future Hill Valley mayor Goldie Wilson, steals the show. And the special effects with the DeLorean, naturally, are dazzling; at one point I thought it would fly off of the stage and over the seats.

Plus, the second half picks up velocity with all the climactic plot turns you know and love. A knockout punch. A dance floor kiss. A lightning strike on the clock tower, with terrific technical effects. If you watched the movie on repeat, as I did, it’s hard not to be thrilled when these key moments take place, among an audience finally coming alive with rapturous applause.

Is it worth the pain of sitting through the rest? This cow says: moooooooooooo.

‘Back to the Future: The Musical’ runs through Sunday, March 9, at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco. Details here.