One hand in the air if you’re tired of jukebox musicals. Alicia Keys must be bored with the genre as well, because when she decided to put her heart and soul and song catalog onstage in Hell’s Kitchen, now receiving world premiere at off-Broadway’s Public Theater, she clearly eschewed any cliché biomusical elements.
There’s no rags-to-riches transformation. No journey from street-corner singer to stadium sellout. No diva drama. Hell’s Kitchen is simply a 1990s-set coming-of-age piece, the story of 17-year-old Ali (Maleah Joi Moon, in an absolute knockout performance) and her single mom, Jersey (Shoshana Bean, whose part consists mostly of putting dinner on the table, pouring water, and clearing the table), making their way in Manhattan Plaza, a rent-subsidized high rise/unofficial artist’s colony in the West 40s. In typical teenage fashion, Ali’s biggest issue is her mom’s disapproval of her boyfriend, a much-older guy named Knuck (a miscast Chris Lee). Her mom’s biggest issue, other than Knuck, is Ali’s largely absent dad, traveling keyboardist Davis (Brandon Victor Dixon, whose smooth vocals are a perfect fit for Keys’ bluesy melodies).
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
In other words, this is a standard-issue family drama—not the Alicia Keys story. Yes, it’s Keys’ music, a score full of her chart-topping hits and lesser-known gems, plus a few new, largely forgettable, songs. (In the uninspired “Seventeen,” Jersey sings, of Ali: “I once was her/ So I try to stop it/ Cause she ’bout to step in some shit.”) But if you’re heading to Hell’s Kitchen hoping to see a portrait of an artist, you’ll be greatly disappointed. Ali takes up the piano, stumbling into lessons from Miss Liza Jane (Kecia Lewis), a Manhattan Plaza icon, but she doesn’t even sit down at the keyboard until almost the end of Act 1. There’s no sense that she’s drawn to the piano—no hint that she might make a career out of playing, singing, and writing…to say nothing of winning 15 Grammys (and counting).
Playwright Kristoffer Diaz (The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity) has penned the libretto, which wedges in Keys’ compositions with wildly varying degrees of success. What works: Davis using the seductive “Fallin’,” Keys’ triple-Grammy-winning single from her debut album, Songs in A Minor, to attempt to slink into his ex-wife’s good graces. What doesn’t: “Pawn It All,” which now takes its lyrics literally, with Jersey dramatically ripping off her watch and her chain (“I would pawn you my watch/ I would pawn you my chain”) at Davis’ audition. “Perfect Way to Die,” Keys’ 2020 heartbreaker written in response to police brutality, has become Miss Liza Jane and Ali’s teaching moment after Knuck has a run-in with the cops; Lewis’ vocals are powerful, but the preceding conflict feels so manufactured. Even the creators know that some of these songs simply don’t fit. During “Girl on Fire,” Ali’s friend Tiny (Vanessa Ferguson) steps in with a reality check: “Hold up. The world is hers ’cause she got a man now? That’s what we’re doing?”
The songs do sound fantastic, though. Keys and her longtime musical director Adam Blackstone have provided the arrangements, and they are tight (the layers of sound on “Empire State of Mind”!); Blackstone and Tom Kitt did the orchestrations. And Camille A. Brown’s contemporary choreography is spot-on, a striking tribute to the constant motion, chaos, and buzz of the city. More than anything, Hell’s Kitchen is a New York story.
Hell’s Kitchen opened Nov. 19, 2023, at the Public Theater and runs through Jan. 14, 2024. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
