Review Roundup: Critics Weigh In On BAT OUT OF HELL in Toronto; Updating LIVE!
By: Alan Henry Oct. 26, 2017
BAT OUT OF HELL THE MUSICAL featuring Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf's Greatest Hits: Dead Ring for Love, Two out of Three Ain't Bad, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, I'd do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That), and Bat Out Of Hell opened in Toronto last night!
Prior to its Toronto engagement, BAT OUT OF HELL THE MUSICAL played a limited run in London's West End at the London Coliseum. The show opened to rave reviews, extending for two additional weeks and ending its run on August 22, 2017. The show played the Manchester Opera House from February 17 - April 29, 2017.
How did the show fare in its North American debut?
Let's see what the critics have to say!
Taylor Long, BroadwayWorld.com: BAT OUT OF HELL THE MUSICAL is definitely an experience. Steinman works wonders with his music, but tends to leave you wondering with the libretto. The plot doesn't make a lot of sense, the stakes are not well established and any time there is dialogue, the pacing feels awkward. However, as soon as the music starts, the show clicks and it becomes a real spectacle. You'll want to see it again, and again.
Karen Fricker, The Toronto Star: Asking for this show to make some kind of logical sense may sound unfair, but there's a massive imbalance between the relentless level of emotion coming out of the songs and the feebleness of the book scenes penned by Steinman that are supposed to hold the numbers together. In this regard the second act works better than the first, in that dialogue dwindles to two or three lines before another hit pumps out.
Liz Braun, Toronto Sun: Bat Out Of Hell is a youthquake created out of music, dance and raw energy, but it's really all about the songs - songs with the power to convey all the yearning and urgency of first love and heartbreak. Transporting to be sure, and unlike the rest of us, it never gets old.
J. Kelly Nestruck, The Globe and Mail: I haven't mentioned Steinman's dialogue, which is all written in the cringeworthy style of the spoken-word section on the original Bat Out of Hell album. "On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?" Strat goes around asking various women. Ben Elton's book for We Will Rock You, the Queen musical, seems like a great work of dramatic literature by comparison.
Check back for more reviews as they come in!
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