Summary
A haunting American folk-style musical based on the true story of a cave explorer trapped underground in 1925. The ensuing media frenzy and rescue effort become a poignant exploration of the American dream and human resilience.
Saturday, April 26, 2025 at 8:00 PM Apr 26, 2025, 8:00 PM
It makes sense that this is divisive and it really makes sense that it only ever played off-Broadway for such a long time. A man gets trapped in a cave and he’s stuck for the entire duration of a musical - stuck in the cave, stuck in his body, stuck in his mind. This show is all about interiority, and you have to be willing to engage with how his and other characters’ desires, motivations, and reactions change as the situation gets more desperate over time, or the story is going to feel thin.
In that respect, it’s more demanding than a typical night at the theater, and I think it would be reasonable to get to “overly bleak” or even “boring” as a function of differing taste, rather than bad judgment. But I kind of think great art should be a little audacious and inspire some spread in opinion, and whatever else you have to say about it, you can’t deny the degree of difficulty of making this particular premise work on a stage.
For me, they really pulled it off, and I’m going to find a time to see it again. The score is so, so, so good. Yodeling is used to beautiful effect. The staging will turn some people off with some Lloydisms and an infamous chair, but I rather liked how well they were able to convey the verticality of the cave and tell both the above- and below-ground stories. Jeremy Jordan and Lizzy McAlpine are both major highlights, and I loved their characters’ tight-knit brother-sister relationship (and the whole family dynamic). A really pleasant surprise.