Philip Leara

Courtesy of STLPR

A combination of electric dancing, vibrant lighting, and a surprisingly emotional mother-daughter story cement “Hell’s Kitchen” as a show absolutely worth checking out. The semi-autobiographical Alicia Keys musical stopped on its nationwide tour at the Fabulous Fox Theatre. It follows Ali (Maya Drake, in her professional theater debut), a 17-year-old New Yorker, as she falls in love with Knuck (JonAvery Worrell), an apartment painter who drums outside of her building. 

But “Hell’s Kitchen” isn’t a love story. 

At least it isn’t one between Ali and Knuck. Instead, Ali’s desire to pursue him ends up driving a wedge between her and her strict single mother, Jersey (Kennedy Caughell), and it pushes her to pursue piano lessons from Miss Liza Jane (Roz White), who lives in her building. Like a lot of teenagers, Ali is rebellious, adventurous, and hopelessly in love with someone she barely knows, but the heart of the story is in her relatable relationship with her mom. 

“Hell’s Kitchen” is a jukebox musical, where each of the songs that the characters sing is either one of Alicia Keys’ biggest hits (“Girl on Fire,” “Empire State of Mind,” “Fallin’”) or original songs that Keys wrote for the show in her characteristic R&B style. This music is what forms the foundation of the show, and almost all of its musical scenes are thrilling. 

While Drake brings Ali to life with great dancing and strong singing, she is outshone by Caughell as Jersey. 

Caughell takes on the burden of playing both an antagonist and a caring mother to Ali, disrupting her relationship with Knuck and yelling at her while still needing to remind her to be home at 6 p.m. for dinner. But Caughell knocks it out of the park, effortlessly showing Jersey’s anger while slowly revealing her sympathetic background and becoming a compelling mother character. 

And Caughell’s vocals during the 11 o’clock number “Pawn It All” are absolutely showstopping, earning the show’s sole standing ovation thanks to her wildly impressive belts and vocal runs. 

Camille A. Brown’s propulsive choreography guides a large ensemble of dancers through effortlessly suave spins, kicks, and bounces in the show’s many dance breaks. When accompanied by Gareth Owen’s booming sound design and Dede Ayite’s vibrant oversized costumes, each song-and-dance scene becomes highly entertaining and a lot of fun. 

But, of course,  “Hell’s Kitchen” is not perfect. Although Drake, who plays Ali, does the best she can with her role in an extremely impressive debut, the show is weighed down by Ali’s reliance on narration. She opens the show, setting the scene for the audience, but then she continuously tells us what Ali is thinking and recaps her thoughts on each scene, even when it is already obvious from her lines and actions.

The projection design from Peter Nigrini is colorful, combining with Robert Brill’s scaffold-like sets to create a constantly shifting New York City skyline in the background, but projecting the name of every location across the back of the set is superfluous. The audience does not need to see that, especially when Ali has already narrated it to us. 

The story is also dedicated to Ali’s music education with Miss Liza Jane, who teaches her how to play the piano every day in their apartment building. White, who portrays Jane, brings a severity with kindness to the role, encouraging Ali to “listen to [her] pain, do something with it,” and turn that anger into song. But toward the end of the show, Jane’s story ends a little abruptly, and her lack of time onstage makes Ali’s resulting emotions feel unearned.

While sweet, Jane’s storyline was ultimately less compelling when compared to Ali’s relationship with her mother Jersey or father Davis (Desmond Sean Ellington). As the show progresses, Jersey calls Davis to seek his help with Ali. Davis has been a very absent father, but worms his way back into Ali and Jersey’s story with a reworked crooning arrangement of “Fallin.’” 

But “Hell’s Kitchen” is ultimately Ali and Jersey’s story. 

It’s about a mother and a daughter pushed apart and pulled back together, fighting with and for each other. Book writer Kristoffer Diaz may have relied too much on narration and wrapped up the show slightly clumsily, but the pulsing heart of “Hell’s Kitchen” is a thrilling soundtrack, energetic dancing, and a heartwarming story of two women. 

See “Hell’s Kitchen” at the Fabulous Fox Theatre through Feb. 8. Tickets are still available.