BACK TO THE FUTURE is a boundary-breaking technical tour de force!  It lifts us out of our seats and into the space/time continuum along with Marty McFly and an excellent cast who take us back to the beloved film! Based on the charming, witty, sci-fi classic released almost 40 years ago to the day– July 3 1985– the stage musical relies not only on key stage elements– strong cast vocals, choreography, costumes, sets, and swift pacing all of which support a clever book, but also on technical derring-do in a tale which demands it. While BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL doesn’t quite capture the movie’s charm– this souped up, hybrid transmission to the stage is a lot of fun!

When Lucas Hallauer as Marty McFly skateboards up to the door of Doc Brown’s funky lab, it’s as though we’ve already slipped back in time. Hallauer is the image of the youthful Michael J. Fox , channeling his energy, voice, and mannerisms, while David Josefberg does his best impression of Christopher Lloyd’s crackpot inventor whose time-traveling DeLorean is about to shake things up. When a time-travel experiment goes awry, Marty is suddenly transported back 30 years to 1955 and encounters his parents as teenagers.

He sees that his father George McFly (played by the goofy-gangly Mike Bindeman imitating the inimitable Crispin Glover) was always an insecure dork, but his mother Lorraine wasn’t as prim as she’d pretended. Zan Berube brings her Methuen, MA roots and a knockout voice to the part. When she develops a cringe-inducing crush on Marty, he realizes he’s in danger of short-circuiting his own existence and must make sure his parents connect romantically lest he prevent his own birth. In the meantime, he does his best to help his dad stand up to HS bully Biff (a serviceable Nathaniel Hackmann).

Bob Gale’s book (he co-wrote the film)stays close to the film, and most of the humor translates. That Calvin Klein label on Marty’s underwear which Lorraine mistakes for his own name never gets old, though they didn’t need to lean so heavily on the sexual innuendo in the bedroom scene. The songs (Alan Silvestri & Glen Ballard) and musical numbers work, especially when aspiring rocker Marty picks up the guitar at the sock hop and confounds the ears of the un-initiated with rock n’ roll a few years too soon. THE POWER OF LOVE stands up, but the “Huey Lewis” cameo with a stand-in “Huey Lewis” would have worked better with a cardboard cutout.

The ensemble is put to ingenious use amplifying whatever the era. At first they’re decked out in 80’s leg warmers and big frizzy hair; soon they jitterbug us back to the 50’s in pompadours and poodle skirts. At one point, they suddenly emerge in top hats and tails, then sheepishly slink away, poking fun at the way lavish musical theater production numbers simply erupt out of nowhere!

It’s not often that I champion technology in the context of live theater and it doesn’t replace the heart and soul of a story, but in this wish fulfillment fantasy of a teen tweaking his parental history, it propels the narrative to life onstage and supplies, rightfully so, much of the excitement here! The show of course builds to the climactic moment where Marty must get back to the future in the aforementioned DeLorean outfitted with time-traveling gismos. HOW the techno team lead by video designer Finn Ross created that multi dimensional effect onstage is viscerally transporting. Video on the back wall and projections on the foreground scrim are synched to pivot around a giant, dazzlingly-detailed DeLorean center stage so it looks like the car is actually swerving through the streets trying to reach the magic 88MPH! The effect is thrilling– I felt like I was flying!

See BACK TO THE FUTURE:THE MUSICAL presented by Broadway in Boston now onstage at THE OPERA HOUSE through July 2o!