Theater review: ‘The Lost Boys’ and ‘The Rocky Horror Show’
Palace Theatre and Studio 54, New York City
‘The Lost Boys,’ Palace Theatre, New York City
★★★
“The good things about The Lost Boys are so good that they make its fumbles frustrating,” said Adam Feldman in Time Out. An adaptation of a trashy cult-favorite 1987 teen vampire movie, Broadway’s last new musical of the 2025–26 season “aims to set your pulse bounding,” and it does, offering “a world we’ve never seen onstage before,” with performers flying and flipping through the air against a marvel of a three-story set. Meanwhile, the rewritten story, “rooted in daring sincerity,” starts off surprisingly strong. Even though the show’s campier second act undermines the overall effort, this Lost Boys, to a laudable extent, “succeeds where earlier vampire-themed musicals have merely sucked.”
Yes, that second act “could have benefited from more work,” said Frank Rizzo in Variety. Even so, this adaptation is “a stunner of a show rich in imagination, humor, and heart,” and it all begins with two teenagers and their mom moving to a new California town after escaping a monstrous husband and father. LJ Benet plays Michael, 17, who falls in with four teen vampires who play in a rock band while quietly racking up kills. Shoshana Bean is terrific as the mom, the younger brother’s coming out is a welcome addition, and a “smashing” Ali Louis Bourzgui brings “a cool swagger and menace” to the lead vampire role once filled by Kiefer Sutherland.
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With a show this big, “it’s possible to find ways to love it and hate it at the same time,” said Sara Holdren in NYMag.com. It’s far too long. The songs, by the L.A. indie rock band the Rescues, aren’t particularly memorable. Ultimately, though “it’s a dedication to camp that helps this new megamusical take flight.” Bourzgui is “absurdly charismatic,” the flying sequences are, “on some deep, prepubescent level, extremely fun to watch,” and when a show this big and expensive “manages to bring with it both genuine humor and beauty,” I don’t complain; “I’m pulled toward enjoyment.”
‘The Rocky Horror Show,’ Studio 54, New York City
★★
In Broadway’s first revival of The Rocky Horror Show in 26 years, “there’s much to like, even adore,” said Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post. It’s “sexily performed,” it’s “well sung,” and whenever Luke Evans struts onto the stage as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the horny cross-dressing mad scientist, “you can’t take your eyes off him.” Andrew Durand and Stephanie Hsu are also ideal as Brad and Janet, the naïfs who stumble upon Frank-N-Furter’s castle, with Hsu “a total wow” at playing Janet’s descent from nice to naughty. Alas, the production proves “wishy-washy” in its commitment to the tradition of loud, rowdy audience participation that made the 1975 film adaptation a midnight-movie classic. “Choose your call-outs carefully,” the show’s website cautions. And the audience’s resulting cautiousness produces “an inevitable energy dip.”
For anyone weaned on the movie, this production “may underwhelm,” said Richard Lawson in The Guardian. Director Sam Pinkleton won a Tony just last year, but “the crispness that Pinkleton brought to Oh, Mary! is not present here.” While Rocky Horror began as a spit-and-gum spoof of a B-movie monster flick, Pinkleton seems “overwhelmed by Richard O’Brien’s helter-skelter plotting,” eventually “letting beats and jokes whiz by incoherently,” making the show indecipherable to newcomers. “A Rocky Horror revival should be an opportunity to mint new fans rather than mere time warp back to remembered nights at the movies.”
But “damn it, Janet, I’m glad that the show hasn’t entirely worked out how to deal with the audience,” said Helen Shaw in The New York Times. Rocky Horror “can’t just be a sacred relic.” Its special energy requires “a tussle between the stage and the seats,” a tension between what is prohibited and what is allowed. Given that tension, casting SNL alum Rachel Dratch as the narrator “looks like Nobel-level brilliance,” because the improv vet fields most of the heckling and responds with drollery that’s “entirely hilarious.” Sure, “after an exhilarating first half, the show softens in the second.” But you sit through the whole thing wondering if the night you’ve chosen will be the one when the dam breaks. “The point of Rocky Horror is to lose control. C’mon, let’s do it again.”