Lights Out: Nat "King" Cole (Previews)
Lights Out: Nat "King" Cole (Previews)
bstoll1
Broadway Star Joined: 9/27/13
BrodyFosse123
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/27/06
#2Lights Out: Nat "King" Cole (Previews)
Posted: 5/1/25 at 7:58am
For those curious ones, here’s the info. This originated at the Geffen Playhouse in 2019.
https://www.nytw.org/show/lights-out-nat-king-cole/
#3Lights Out: Nat
Posted: 5/1/25 at 10:59am
Actually, it originated at People's Light in Malvern, Pennsylvania, in 2017, with Hill and Watts. I saw it there and found it well acted, but with little more depth than your usual biographical play. Hopefully it's been revised and focused since then.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Updated On: 5/1/25 at 10:59 AM
ErmengardeStopSniveling
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/20/18
#4Lights Out: Nat
Posted: 5/1/25 at 9:46pm
Somehow, this show has escaped the York Theatre and taken up residence at NYTW. At the York it would be bad but at least the expectations would have been rock-bottom; here you go in expecting something resembling art and get nothing in return.
It's such a puzzling waste of time by everyone involved.
The cast is mostly good, but in this telling NKC is a completely inert leading character. It doesn't seem that the team cares at all about Nat King Cole. I’d prefer a Daniel J. Watts vehicle as Sammy Davis (I don’t understand the point of the Davis character, but those are the only sequences where the show comes to life).
I didn’t like the design but that’s like saying someone sneezed on me in a Titanic lifeboat. Some odd orchestration choices (French Horn as the only brass?) but again, not the biggest problem.
At least it’s only 90 minutes?
CoffeeBreak
Broadway Star Joined: 3/30/17
#5Lights Out: Nat
Posted: 5/1/25 at 10:04pm
YES. We thought thought the same tonight. Really wanted to like this 85 min one act. The cast is giving their all!, in this ultra thin play with music, but this is lackluster, sadly. The direction is not much better. The song lyrics are often awkwardly spoken into a snippet of song. The cohesion, or lack thereof, of book and song is wonky, jarring. The best moment is a middle of the show number between Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis - very similar to the same in A Wonderful World. Agree a Sammy Davis vehicle for Watts would be great! - and better than his xmas ghost engaging Cole's memories. Reminded us of NWS's Rock 'N Roll Man's Little Richard as host...
The music, of course, is nice because it's songs people know. The book is awkward. The text creates important moments on race etc. all of which touched on better, smoother and less jarring in other shows. This one is muddy and, even with their longer preview period, maybe unfixable? It does not appear they have made strong adjustments from the Geffen.
Abrupt end. We had high hopes but left a little deflated. Hoping the previews can provide help.
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