Hell's Kitchen Musical on Broadway
Aiicia Keys Tells Her Story
By: Susan Hall - Sep 14, 2024
Alicia Key has created herself as “Ali” in the musical Hell’s Kitchen now playing on Broadway. Keys grew up in the Manhattan Plaza complex, a few blocks from Times Square. Built during one of New York’s deep downturns, the building was supposed to be an upper middle class apartment house. Discounted apartments did rent. It became one of New York’s most desirable residences for artists. Tennessee Williams’ apartment was near the top of the building. Ali’s home appears to be too, as we see her ride up in a neon etched elevator. Her home kitchen is heaven. Sometimes.
The set for the show is a brilliant interlining of posts and lintels with neon in the middle of their beams. The Ellsworth Room in the complex is used for various events. Billie Jean King plays tennis on its courts. The health club is an Olympic marvel of luxury.
Ali is seventeen when we meet her, her hair bundled in a big pony tail. She’s having problems with her mother (who doesn’t). Her largely absent father arrives to diagnose ‘teenge.’ This diagnosis doesn't keep Mom Jesse from slapping her daughter. A one-slap Mom. Donna Vivino of Wicked, Hairspray and Saturday Night Fever, deserves a call-out for stepping in as a marvelous Mom.
Dangers lurk everywhere on stage, but the atmosphere is lively. Urban dancing abounds. You can see why this dance style became an Olympic sport in Paris. Singing styles range from rap to operatic and are uniformly excellent.
The story is familiar. Classic. A daughter disobeys her mother and in the process repeats her mother’s teenage mistake, getting involved with a man too early. At the same time, she meets a piano artist in the Ellington Room of Manhattan Plaza and begins to play. She will be in the tradition of Margaret Bonds and Florence Price, black women composers we’d never heard of until about five years ago. Hazel Scott is her heritage too. i
The teacher Liza Jane becomes a mentor and helps Ali grow up. Old and dying, she encourgaes Ali to have a relationship with her mother, an important part of becoming herself.
A rallying tribute to New York concludes the show, appropriate for a tale told just a few blacks down from where the tale actually unfolded.
My only wish was for a subtler adjustment of the microphones, which sometimes made it difficult to hear words.
Go see Hell's Kitchen.. Celebrate the city which often turns down, but always turns up again.
Playing at the Schubert Theater in New York.