Broadway Blog - FELA! Review Roundup

In this new musical, directed and choreographed by Tony® Award winner Bill T. Jones with a book by Jim Lewis, audiences are welcomed into the extravagant, decadent and rebellious world of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Using his pioneering music (a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies), Fela! explores Kuti's controversial life as artist, political activist and revolutionary musician. Featuring many of Fela Kuti's most captivating songs and Bill T. Jones’s imaginative staging, this new show is a provocative hybrid of concert, dance and musical theater.

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: "There should be dancing in the streets. When you leave the Eugene O'Neill Theater after a performance of "Fela!," it comes as a shock that the people on the sidewalks are merely walking. Why aren't they gyrating, swaying, vibrating, in thrall to the force field that you have been living in so ecstatically for the past couple of hours? The hot (and seriously cool) energy that comes from the musical gospel preached by the title character of "Fela!," which opened on Monday night, feels as if it could stretch easily to the borders of Manhattan and then across a river or two. Anyone who worried that Bill T. Jones's singular, sensational show might lose its mojo in transferring to Broadway can relax."

Jennifer Farrar, Associated Press: "Fela!" is a unique Broadway experience that leaves the audience on their feet and wanting more."

Sam Thielman, Variety: "Will the average Broadway matinee lady be comfortable participating in a practical demonstration of how to tell time with her ass? That's exactly what takes place in "The Clock," a particularly frisky sequence of "Fela!" in which the entire audience is on its feet learning from the able-bodied dance corps what Swiss-movement booty work is all about. And it's just one of countless ways in which Bill T. Jones' wildly loose-limbed journey into the throbbing heart of Afrobeat breaks bold new ground in musical theater."

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: "Fela!'s choreography is, as a result, livelier and more sophisticated. Executed by a dynamic cast, it's the perfect companion to Kuti's supple tunes and pulsing grooves, served with virtuosity by a band conducted by Antibalas' AaRon Johnson. Delivering exuberant storytelling through song and dance, Fela! achieves something closer to the essence of great musicals than many more conventional shows have of late."

Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter: "The increasing adventurousness of Broadway producers is well demonstrated by "Fela!," the high-powered new musical about legendary African performer Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. A smash hit Off-Broadway, this wildly entertaining show will need all the help it can get to attract mainstream audiences, though the late addition of producers Jay-Z and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith will surely help."

Michael Sommers, NJ Newsroom: "Broadway has never before witnessed a musical quite like "Fela!" - an explosive mix of catchy Afrobeat rhythms, wild, sexy dancing and raw bio-dramatics - and while its unique charms certainly are powerful, one frankly wonders whether this unusual show will catch on with the mainstream public."

Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly: "Like a true impresario, Fela radiates joy as he oversees the action on stage. But his players, from his activist mother (Lillias White) to a chorus of dancers gyrating to Bill T. Jones' muscular choreography, seem more self-possessed, holding the audience at a distance."

John Simon, Bloomberg News: "The 2-1/2 hours, reduced from off-Broadway's 3, cannot tell the whole story. There is some glossing over; we never, for example, learn how Fela incurred AIDS. But there are Fela's music and Jones's equally matchless dances, uniquely combining earthiness with flight, dynamics with delicacy and drive to equal, if not surpass, Olympian ideals."

David Sheward, Backstage: "As it was Off-Broadway, the concert format is punctuated with explosive dance numbers performed with an uninhibited joy and intensity by a fiercely talented ensemble. The highlight of the evening is an exhilarating challenge sequence, with each member of the chorus delivering a stunning solo."

Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: "Fela!" is one of the most original and exciting shows to come around in a long while. It deserves its berth on Broadway - and that exclamation point."

Elisabeth Vincentelli, NY Post: "Directed and choreographed by Bill T. Jones, the biography is at its most thrilling when it blurs the line between life and art, performers and viewers. A pedagogical deconstruction of Afrobeat's musical components turns into a party, and the show is so cocky that it doesn't even save a big audience-participation number for the finale: It comes half an hour in."

Linda Winer, Newsday: "I know I should feel hard-wired to enjoy - no, to love - "Fela!," the biography/ concert/spectacle/collage about Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the late Nigerian politico, rebel, hedonist and galvanic center of the fusion ethno-pop music known as Afrobeat."