Back to the Future

Saturday, June 6th, Frank and I went to the matinee performance of the musical Back to the Future at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts.  The night before we watched the movie to refresh our memories and get more out of the stage production. For the plot of the musical see this Wikipedia article. We collected our programs and settled in to our seats, our usual Row 12 seats 45,47 on house right.

The show was great! The costumes were colorful, the dancing energetic, and the lead did an excellent job that I could almost believe it was Michael J Fox up there playing the role of Marty McFly. Biff and the Doc also gave talented performances, just as I remembered those characters to be - dumb and eccentric respectively. But I think the real star of the show though, was the Delorean that appeared majestically and magically during a thunderous blackout and subsequent blinding lightning bolt.

The staging was also awesome with an added engaging feature. Some of the backdrop was three-dimensional and some was projected, and you could not tell which was which. At one point Frank was certain the Delorean was projected — until the driver door lifted up and Marty stepped out of it. The speed scenes of the car racing through the town of Hill Valley were artistically and flawlessly achieved with a real 3-D and projected blend. How they spun around and maneuvered that car within the confined rotating space of the stage was truly impressive. 

The music numbers were peppy and enjoyable, although understanding the lyrics was not a strong point for either Frank me. Reading the lyrics the night before the show would have been beneficial, but then that would have seemed like homework. Watching the movie was enough prep. Although may words were not clear I got the gist of the song's meaning and could soak up the enthusiasm of each. The songs were all new, so not familiar, except for one. When Marty plays his guitar and sings Johnny B. Goode I recognized that musical number and relished his performance of it. 

At the end of the show an image quoting the mutilated brilliance of Bif was projected."Make like a tree and get outta here!" We crept along with the exiting crowd way to the lobby,  not at the precise speed of 88 mph but we got there eventually, and finished off our outing with some poster photos in the lobby.