Lazarus NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (95)
See it if you like great acting, music and something entirely different.
Don't see it if you like conventional theatre
See it if You enjoy new and different work
Don't see it if You need a break in a two hour show without an intermission... or if you don't enjoy Bowie.
See it if you like camp, high concept theatre, and love David Bowie.
Don't see it if you want regular theatre.
See it if you're a David Bowie fan, like the film The Man Who Fell to Earth, want to see creative staging with a lot of projections and balloons
Don't see it if you want a very clear storyline, you're not really interested in anything about Lazarus and only want to go because it's a hot ticket
See it if enjoy Bowie's music and enjoy unconventional, artsy theatre with a very impressive cast who know how to bring it on stage.
Don't see it if you do not like stories that are out there with great imagination & if you do not like to be left wondering.
See it if You have a great deal of patience and don't need everything to make sense right away. You like seeing people taking risks
Don't see it if You need something surface-level, ready to digest.
See it if you love Bowie's music and avant-garde aesthetic.
Don't see it if you dislike experimental theater.
See it if You enjoy a thought provoking theater experience with amazing projections and video component, and a remake of Bowie classics.
Don't see it if You are ok leaving the theater not knowing exactly what it was you just saw, or the connections among all the characters and stories.
Critic Reviews (39)
“'Lazarus' is a jukebox musical by and for people who think they’re too good for jukebox musicals...The source material’s sci-fi plot is largely gone, replaced with chic modernist alienation...Your guess is as good as mine as to what’s going on, though a handful of scenes will stick with you...Equally impressive is how much Hall sounds like Bowie when he sings. The effect is downright eerie — a lot more so than the show as a whole."
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"Belgian director Ivo van Hove creates an experimental production that depends heavily on wall-to-wall video projections of offstage locations and characters...It's baffling as hell and unapologetically avant-garde. But if you're up for something like this, its arresting visuals, dreamlike atmosphere and introspective Bowie songs have the potential to keep you entranced for two straight hours without intermission."
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"Featuring a powerfully melodic score and an enigmatic storyline, 'Lazarus' expands the mythology while maintaining many of the bizarre qualities that made the film a cult classic...The show suffers from the same problems of every musical that attempts to shoehorn a preexisting song catalogue into a contrived plot...'Lazarus' doesn't look or feel like any other musical currently playing New York. Even when it is not entirely lucid, it is still thrilling to behold."
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"Other shows had identifiable characters and comprehensible plots, which is more than you can say about 'Lazarus'...Basically, the script is a chic, hollow frame designed to set off a playlist of Bowie hits, none of which are especially suited to the story being told, even if they match its grimly downbeat mood...Whatever one expected of this starry creative team, the morose, often pretentious repurposing of some appealing pop hits from three or four decades past isn't it."
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"Though it's an intriguing experiment, it's a success only if you think getting a David Bowie musical to open in New York is itself a praiseworthy achievement...Bowie's goal seems to have been to write an explosive, fluid, free-form work that wouldn't stop moving and evolving...What's been produced instead is lumpy, self-important, and soulless...Right now 'Lazarus,' like the biblical figure of the same name, is just plain D.O.A."
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"An engrossing sound and light show with a psychedelic rock concert, not all of it making realistic sense…While the story may seem vague and mystical, the actors all have a handle on their characters...At times it does seem as though there are too many stories being told...'Lazarus' offers the viewer the experience of an organized happening. Not for everyone, 'Lazarus' is for David Bowie fans as well as those looking for something unusual in music theater."
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"The stage production has been imaginatively reconceived as a mind-bending theatrical experience. It is a stunning achievement for all involved...a credible and striking union between the purely fantastical, the deeper divisions of the mind as well as the many darker dimensions of human behavior...Allows us to see into the heart of Bowie's music as an entry into a frightening but also unforgettable world."
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"Admittedly, the show’s new book by Tony winner Enda Walsh doesn’t always hold one’s attention or easily meld with Bowie’s music...Yet, what grounds the show is the central performance of Michael C. Hall as Newton...This powerful actor not only captures Newton’s desperation, but he has practically transformed his voice into Bowie’s, giving added resonance to such songs as 'Heroes' and 'Absolute Beginners.' It’s one of the year’s most memorable star turns."
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