Maleah Joi Moon, Chris Lee and cast in “Hell’s Kitchen” on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre in New York.
NEW YORK — The music of Alicia Keys is well suited to a jukebox musical: the burst of energy that flows from hits like “Girl on Fire” are dynamic blasts perfectly suited to a show clearly drawing from Keys’ own origin story as a kid growing up in the federally subsidized artist’s haven Manhattan Plaza in Hell’s Kitchen, a transformative influence on that neighborhood and a tower that has sheltered all manner of Gotham creatives from the saxophonist Ricky Ford to the actor Timothée Chalamet...
There are many other Keys songs in “Hell’s Kitchen,” including “Fallin’,” “No One,” and “If I Ain’t Got You.” But, In essence, the book writer Kristoffer Diaz took the lean lyrics of “Girl on Fire” and crafted his happily romantic and adoringly biographical plot. In much the same way that Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights” was a tribute to the people of Washington Heights, so is “Hells Kitchen” a tribute to the artistic history of Manhattan Plaza, although it’s a much more personal show. Its music and lyrics were written by a hugely talented star, and it tells of her formative years and much of its appeal relies on your fascination with all of that.
The said, you will get zero surprises from a book that immediately signals it will be about a mother and daughter struggling through the latter’s teenage years and eventually arriving at a mutually appreciative rapprochement alongside a spiritual and creative mentor whose predictable exit creates the requisite sense of loss and recovery in Act 2.
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