Lazarus NYC Reviews and Tickets

73%
(95 Ratings)
Positive
72%
Mixed
17%
Negative
11%
Members say
Confusing, Great acting, Edgy, Ambitious, Absorbing

About the Show

New York Theatre Workshop presents this sci-fi production, with songs by David Bowie and directed by Ivo van Hove, about a human-looking alien who comes to Earth seeking a way to bring water back to his home planet.

Read more Show less

Show-Score Member Reviews (95)

Sort by:
  • Default
  • Standing in our community
  • Highest first
  • Lowest first
  • Newest first
  • Oldest first
  • Only positive
  • Only negative
  • Only mixed
55 Reviews | 16 Followers
77
Confusing, Edgy, Thought-provoking, Bowie

See it if you love David Bowie music, can appreciate his weird/wonderful aesthetic and want insight into his final days on earth,

Don't see it if you are looking for a straight forward story or everything to make perfect sense, or if you aren't a fan of Bowie's music. Read more

191 Reviews | 58 Followers
76
Confusing, Edgy, Great staging, Great songs, Bizarre

See it if you love david bowie's music and are a fan of the man who fell to earth. It is a follow up to the movie and it helps if you remember the mov

Don't see it if you like your shows to be clear and linear. the plot is fantastical and hard to follow. but it is never boring

407 Reviews | 66 Followers
75
Absorbing, Confusing, Edgy, Indulgent, Quirky

See it if you enjoy avant garde theater with good performances , and good music. Bowie's music well interpreted here. The staging is clever.

Don't see it if you require traditional story telling.

333 Reviews | 60 Followers
74
Confusing, Ambitious, Edgy, Great acting, Original

See it if you're a Bowie fan, you like seeing new talent (Sofia Caruso), you're looking for something different.

Don't see it if you can't sit still for 2 hours, you don't like weird, you don't like projections, you're not a Bowie fan.

167 Reviews | 51 Followers
72
Original, Confusing, Daring

See it if You don't think you need to understand something to be captivated by it. You want to erase Elsa Mars's rendition of two songs from your mind

Don't see it if You think you're going to see Mamma Mia Bowie-style.

69 Reviews | 5 Followers
70
Ambitious, Thought-provoking, Great staging, Intelligent, Dizzying

See it if you like experimental, non-linear and non plot-driven theatre.

Don't see it if you want your musical theatre to be clear and linear and "entertaining."

714 Reviews | 253 Followers
70
Dizzying, Edgy, Confusing, Disappointing, Intense

See it if You love David Bowie, and don't care whether or not a musical has a plot.

Don't see it if You require a plot and dislike experimental music theater.

186 Reviews | 25 Followers
70
Confusing, Disappointing, Edgy, Resonant, Quirky

See it if Great David Bowie music, imaginative

Don't see it if Confusing, disjointed

Critic Reviews (39)

Exeunt Magazine
December 9th, 2015

"Essentially one big pop song written for the stage...This ought to be a liberating conceit, but the story demands constantly to be taken seriously…It also feels at times like the music has had all the wind knocked out of it...The direction and design provide some blessed relief...Incredibly, for a work marshaling so much talent and exciting so much anticipation, Lazarus lacks inspiration of all things, and that’s the hardest thing to forgive here."
Read more

DC Theatre Scene
December 11th, 2015

"Unlike your typical jukebox musical, there also doesn’t seem to be an extensive effort to connect the lyrics of the songs to what is going on in the scene beforehand...the story is not 'Lazarus’ strongest suit...Given the right frame of mind – it helps to be a Bowie fan, and to have seen the movie or read the book – the story is a tantalizing mystery."
Read more

The Clyde Fitch Report
December 8th, 2015

"'Lazarus' is captivating, but not necessarily to everyone’s immediate taste and not without occasionally dry and/or confounding patches...This is also to say that the logic of 'Lazarus' often crosses into the illogical — it helps to liken this show not to standard stage musicals but music videos. Yet if music videos are often the driver of the show’s charm, it is also the source of some befuddlement."
Read more

The Guardian (UK)
December 7th, 2015

"It will be many years before we see a jukebox musical as unapologetically weird as 'Lazarus,' an almost incomprehensible and intriguing new play...This should be a terrible show. It seems unlikely that it is what its collaborators imagined, and what they have created makes little sense. But they are so extravagantly talented and the performers undertake what’s asked of them with such verve that it’s nearly impossible not to be persuaded and at least a little thrilled."
Read more

The Wrap
December 7th, 2015

"It’s the best jukebox musical ever. That may not sound like much of a compliment, but when you put David Bowie‘s musical catalogue at the service of book writers Bowie and Enda Walsh and director Ivo van Hove, the result is more than unique. It’s terrific must-see theater."
Read more

The Huffington Post
December 7th, 2015

"What it all means, or is supposed to mean, is for them to know and you to find out, although after two intermissionless hours you might no longer feel the need to know. The assorted components of the production team are unquestionably visionary. Sometimes, alas, the collective vision isn't quite realized....Perhaps they shall continue to work on the material elsewhere...At this point, though, 'Lazarus' is uninvolving, mighty odd, and you can't get a ticket."
Read more

Broadway & Me
December 12th, 2015

"'Lazarus' is far from being the most lucid show around…Luckily, van Hove has created captivating stage images that kept us leaning in even when we didn't know what they meant. And the music rocks…Of course, fitting the songs into the book is less of a problem when the book isn't all that coherent to begin with…Michael C. Hall, Cristin Milloti, and Michael Esper are all in great voice and throw themselves into their performances with passionate abandon."
Read more

Newsday
December 7th, 2015

"It would be ridiculous to describe it as another jukebox musical...a riveting multimedia meditation — a visceral, disturbing, hallucinatory experience that’s as nonlinear and chameleonic as the rock star himself...Some songs and avant-garde techniques may seem like throwbacks. But this is urgent, stirring, genuine rock art — musical theater like nothing that has fallen to Earth before."
Read more