‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow' Review: An Origin Story for the Stage

New York Times

23-04-2025

If the economic point of entertainment franchises is to generate new forms of interconnected content, then theater is merely another logical outlet for a property, alongside movies, TV shows, comic books, video games and theme parks. So now here we are with 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow,' the latest pop-culture phenomenon to manifest into the Broadway dimension.
As far as its plot is concerned, the play that just opened at the Marquis Theater fits neatly into the lore of 'Stranger Things,' a wildly popular Netflix series about a fictional Indiana town at the juncture of terrifying government experiments and supernatural forces. This production is big, loud, often ingenious and occasionally breathtaking, in a 'how the hell did they do this?' kind of way.
In other words, 'The First Shadow' fulfills its franchise requirements in terms of spectacular art direction and compliance to the series' canon (to which it adds tantalizing tidbits). Whether it is satisfying as a piece of theater is a dicier proposition.
Based on a story by the Duffer Brothers (who created the series), Jack Thorne ('Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,' a co-creator of the current Netflix phenomenon 'Adolescence') and Kate Trefry, 'The First Shadow,' written by Trefry, is a prequel to the series. More specifically, it piggybacks on Season 4, which is set in 1986, and tells the origin story of that season's primary antagonist, Vecna — the teenager Henry Creel in 1959, when the main plot of the Broadway play takes place.
If Vecna doesn't ring a bell, or if you don't know that Eleven is better than One, don't fret: It's possible to follow the show anyway, and to enjoy it. But it's hard to deny that audience members who understand those references will have access to more layers of 'The First Shadow.'
In a rare switch of point of view for 'Stranger Things,' which tends to look at the action from the good guys' perspective, the play focuses on the troubled, lonely Henry (Louis McCartney, a transfer from the London world-premiere production from 2023). He just moved to Hawkins, Ind., with his parents (T.R. Knight and Rosie Benton) and younger sister (Azalea Wolfe at the performance I attended).
We know from the start that Henry has some kind of telekinetic abilities that cause him great turmoil. He is both resigned to feeling different and anguished about it, so he is almost shocked to make a friend at his new high school: Patty Newby (Gabrielle Nevaeh), the principal's adopted daughter and another kid who feels like an outcast.
Patty might not be in the Netflix series (at least not so far), but the play features a network of characters who will be familiar to TV viewers, albeit in their grown-up versions. They include Patty's brother, Bob (Juan Carlos), an ebullient nerd and the founder of the Hawkins High A.V. Club; the police chief's son, James Hopper Jr. (Burke Swanson); and Joyce Maldonado (Alison Jaye), the ambitious director of the school play. Here Dr. Brenner (Alex Breaux) is around as an adult, handsome and already diabolical. Easter eggs abound.
The show starts with the kind of technically demanding, visually ambitious coup de théâtre most productions save for later — think battleship at sea, shrieks of pain and terror and, of course, paranormal dimensions. The director Stephen Daldry and the co-director Justin Martin can't sustain that intensity for almost three hours, but they sure do try: The production is pitched at 10, except when it's at 11. Even the scenes involving a school play ('Dark of the Moon,' a real Broadway show from 1945) have a semi-hysterical tone, usually set by the relentless Joyce.
While there are some fun jump scares, they, by nature, come and go quickly. For the most part, the show doesn't mine the suspenseful, lingering dread that the series effectively deploys to keep you on the edge of your seat.
The most potent source of tension is Henry, whom McCartney, in the show's standout performance, plays with a sense of existential torment. Henry exudes an eerie calm and a creepy determination, most evidently in his scenes with his overbearing mother and Dr. Brenner.
'You're definitely not the Devil,' Patty reassures her new friend. 'You're just a weirdo.' What she doesn't know is that Henry is a weirdo who uses his powers in terrifying ways. The fate of Henry's victims ranks among the most arresting moments in a show that has quite a few of them.
The production is at its technical best when seamlessly combining Miriam Buether's set, which includes a diner where the kids hang out, with mechanical and digital wizardry, while the theater occasionally rattles with infra-bass for extra mood. It's worth highlighting the teams that brought the dark side of Hawkins to life: the illusions and visual-effects design is by Jamie Harrison and Chris Fisher (both of whom worked on 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child'); the video design and visual effects are by the 59 company; Paul Arditti did the sound design and Jon Clark the lighting.
Except for the cheesy rendering of an animatronic-like Mind Flayer, it's all rather impressive. But it also feels a little hollow.
A major reason for the success of 'Stranger Things' is that you don't walk away thinking just about battles in parallel realities, but about the emotions and relationships of people who feel very real in a town that also feels very real. It's grounded in an intimacy and details that are mostly absent here.
In the making-of documentary 'Behind the Curtain: Stranger Things the First Shadow,' Trefry (who is also a writer on the series) says that you can't do a close-up, a montage or a hard cut onstage. The thing is, you can, but it requires resourcefulness and craft that are different from the ones involved in making spiders look realistic or a person fall in slow motion. Because it is locked into an operatic volume, 'The First Shadow' never quite finds the grace notes and tonal variations that would bring out the show's sadness and horror.