The winter of 2025 marks a century since a spelunker in rural Kentucky was trapped inside a cave, rescue efforts failed, and he died two weeks later at the age of 37, all of which triggered what’s been deemed the first media circus, with extensive coverage in the newspapers and radio broadcasts, and attracted some 30,000 tourists, neighbors, and volunteers to the site. It’s taken three decades for the musical Floyd Collins, with music and lyrics by Adam Guettel and book and additional lyrics by Tina Landau, who also directs, to come to Broadway, following its world premiere at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia in 1994, and an award-winning Off-Broadway debut at Playwrights Horizons in 1996. But it’s here now, playing at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater, and it’s already received awards nominations from the Drama League and Outer Critics Circle.
Starring in the titular role, the outstanding Jeremy Jordan delivers a full range of emotions, from his excitement about pursuing the American dream by exploring and developing the Great Sand Cave as a tourist attraction that would alleviate the financial woes of his family, to confidently entering the cave, climbing and descending to “The Call,” and initially feeling “Lucky” about being rescued from his entrapment there, to his increasing concern after several attempts have failed, growing weakness and fever dreams in his deteriorating condition, and the final realization that he has to let go of life, ultimately appearing unencumbered, walking towards the blue sky, and expressively wondering “How Glory Goes” (one of his moving vocals, some of which even include the most melodic yodeling I’ve ever heard, with Bruce Coughlin’s orchestrations and music direction by conductor Ted Sperling bringing appropriate stylings to Guettel’s distinctive score).
Equally affecting are the bonds with the people who try to save him, including his sister Nellie (singer/songwriter Lizzy McAlpine in her Broadway debut), brother Homer (in a three-dimensional characterization by Jason Gotay), who gives sound advice to the rescue team and also benefits with an acting contract to tell his story – both of whom appear with Floyd in the hallucinatory number “The Dream” – and cub reporter Skeets Miller (embodied with empathy in another standout portrayal by Taylor Trensch), whose coverage launched the media frenzy, whose small scale enabled him to enter the underground area where Collins was caught to bring him food and water, companionship and encouragement, and whose conscience and concern for the man he quickly came to care about, later led him to express his tearful regrets.
Other telling plot points revolve around the carnival atmosphere that opens Act II, created by the press, gawkers, and members of Collins’ family and friends seeking to exploit the tragedy for monetary gain and fame, with a Vaudevillian-style song-and-dance routine, “Is That Remarkable” (dance sequences by Jon Rua), by a trio of exuberant reporters (the excellent Dwayne Cooper, Jeremy Davis, and Charlie Franklin), and a self-important engineer from a mining company (H.T. Carmichael, well-played by Sean Allan Krill) who takes charge of the rescue operation with little prior hands-on underground experience or knowledge – all there for career advancement and profit, with no regard for the desperate circumstances of the human being stuck inside.
For me, one of the main problems with the show is that we’re already aware of its outcome, so, despite Jordan’s compelling performance, it’s hard to become invested in the rollercoaster of emotional ups and downs; even when it seems that salvation is near, we can’t get truly excited or feel hopeful because the real-life story didn’t end on a positive note. He’s doomed from the start and we know it.
The large open stage at the Beaumont is also troublesome, as is the minimalist set (by dots), which never relays the feeling of intense claustrophobia that Collins and those attempting to rescue him would have experienced inside the tiny, constricting, blocked area of the actual cave. Instead, he’s seen throughout the show at audience left on a sleek, dark grey, modernist recliner, which matches the color of the stage floor and the central rectilinear panels that rise from it, supposedly leading to the mineshaft and narrow passageways within. Though one of his legs was completely pinned, we see both in full; we’re required to use our imaginations, not to rely on the distractingly abstract set to convey the extreme confinement in which he was trapped for fourteen days, as opposed to the wide open space of the rest of the flat stage, with just a few barrels and benches, the dark grey ground, and projections (by Ruey Horng Sun), on the full-screen back wall, of the changing colors of the sky and the thoughtlessly exploding fireworks that could dangerously impact the already unstable cave.
It’s left largely to the dramatic lighting (by Scott Zielinski), contrasting the blackness of the cave, with just a lantern for illumination and a spotlight on Collins, with the brightness outside (and the resultant spectral silhouetting of the company in many scenes), and the startling sound (by Dan Moses Schreier) of a thunderstorm, the dirt and rocks collapsing on and around him, and the guiding echo of his voice to capture the moods and the situations both above and below ground, along with the southern accents and authentic costumes (by Anita Yavich) that suit the era, the characters, and their professions and social classes in this true historical drama.
While the staging and visuals of the underground scenes failed to transport me there, the expressive performances, songs, and above ground spectacle brought Floyd Collins to life and delivered the resonant message that suffering should engender compassion not exploitation.
Running Time: Approximately two hours and 35 minutes, including an intermission.
Floyd Collins plays through Sunday, June 22, 2025, at Lincoln Center Theater, the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, 150 West 65th Street, NYC. For tickets (priced at $58-299, including fees), go online, or find discount tickets at TodayTix here.