‘Illinoise’ Review: A Thrilling, Genre-Defying Broadway Musical Brings the Sufjan Stevens Album to Lyrical Life
26.04.2024 - 20:19
/ variety.com
Christian Lewis Sufjan Stevens’s indie folk concept album “Illinois”(2005) is whimsical, earnest, and sorrowful; it weaves together events and figures from Illinois history (including UFO sightings, Pullman cars, the World’s Fair of 1893, and the Lincoln/Douglas debates) with Biblical allusions and feelings of shame and loss. This multifaceted mix, often stirring and fascinating to listen to, is not an inherently logical choice for a narrative work of art — and yet, Justin Peck has devised, directed, and choreographed a 90-minute dance theater piece based on it, one that will indelibly be remembered as one of the most singular productions in recent Broadway history.
Billed as “a new Broadway musical,” the piece brings up questions of genre. The songs advance the plot, but are sung by members of the band, with the cast entirely composed of dancers.
In some ways, “Illinoise”overlaps with two other productions this season, “Hell’s Kitchen,” which uses Alicia Keys’s catalog and is inspired by her life, and “The Heart of Rock and Roll,”a Huey Lewis jukebox musical. There’s also echoes of the 2002 musical “Movin’ Out,” which used Billy Joel’s songs to tell a story through dance.
In addition to primarily being dance theater, “Illinoise”differentiates itself in its fidelity to its source material as not just a source of material but as an object of art to be kept intact. Unlike the many jukeboxes that have come before it which combine songs from several eras, “Illinoise”is unique in its embrace of the concept album as a discrete unit.
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