Seeing “Hell’s Kitchen” live at the Fox Theater in St. Louis (playing through Feb. 8) is like streaming the entire greatest hits playlist of an artist who only has a couple of great hits.
The musical, built around Alicia Keys’ catalog and inspired by her early life in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, delivers plenty of energy and stagecraft, yet it doesn’t quite cohere into the show it clearly wants to be.
If you love Alicia Keys, and I mean deep-cut, fan-for-life level love, this might feel like a night of nostalgia and pyrotechnic choruses. For the most part, the cast replicates Keys’ signature sound, the choreography is tight, and numbers like the anthemic “Empire State of Mind” land with real joy.
For casual listeners, people like me who don’t have strong feelings about Keys either way and see her as only having three bona fide classics in “Fallin’,” “Empire State of Mind,” and “Girl on Fire,” the experience is more uneven.
The musical’s arrangements felt odd at times. Most noticeably, “Fallin’” is presented at a much faster tempo than fans expect, stripping some of the simmering emotion from one of Keys’ signature ballads.
As a coming-of-age story, “Hell’s Kitchen” has heart and ambition, but the narrative is as thin as it is familiar.
Ali (Maya Drake) is a boy-crazy 17-year-old growing up in Manhattan in the late 1990s. She just wants to run free in the vibrant and exciting city, but her overprotective single mother Jersey (Kennedy Caughell) wants her to stay safe and sound in their apartment.
Ali falls for street musician/building painter Knuck (Jonavery Worrell) while finding an unexpected piano tutor in Miss Liza Jane (Roz White). She also reconnects with her estranged father Davis (Desmond Sean Ellington) as her relationship with her mother becomes more strained.
Coming-of-age stories don’t get more conventional than this, and it’s really all just an excuse to stage Keys’ catalog with extensive lighting and choreography.
All told, “Hell’s Kitchen” is a pleasant enough evening of strong vocals and slick staging, but it’s not quite enough to make the music’s rearrangements or storytelling missteps feel worthwhile.
“Hell’s Kitchen” is now playing at the Fox Theatre through Feb. 8. For tickets, call 314-534-1111 or go to metrotix.com.
