Brotherhood, beats, and bruised egos – Hit Machine is a heartfelt comedy that plays every note.
Hit Machine is a powerhouse comedy that pulls at your heartstrings and makes you fall in love with every character.
Director Daniel Bailey is a visionary, previously Associate Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre, his speciality is inviting audiences to feel they’re a part of the show.
Hit Machine is distinctly American, its premise rooted in the LA music industry which is quite a foreign place to most of the audience, as the show opens in London. Yet as soon as the characters begin, the audience takes a sigh of relief. There is an ease that comes with Noah Galvin and Josh Radnor’s performances and their intimate on-stage relationship.
The show centers around their brotherly banter and familial trauma, and what writer Jonathan Caren weaves with excellence is a sense of honesty. The audience laughs at the jovial nature of Galvin’s Alex, the quintessentially annoying younger brother, while Radnor’s dry candor and self-regulation perfectly embody the older brother, Wes.
What is absolutely beautiful about this show is the contemporary parallels it draws. With references and remarks toward the music industry as it stands now, the audience can understand and relate. As the play’s main premise concerns the music business and the relationship between artist and media, audiences bring their own perception and understanding to its nuance.
Khalil Madovi enters the stage with power, first through his sound design, then in his role as Defy, the rapper signed to Wes’s label. In a show whose entire premise is music creation and production, watching the characters make music on stage is inspiring. The first moment that Alex plays a little beat that he creates and sings and the audience is sold. Every moment after feels authentic and intriguing to watch the creation of music.
Madovi’s physical embodiment of Defy is also intriguing: he feels like a direct and accurate portrayal to rappers today. Defy’s central conflict surrounds being a Black man in an industry that demands a persona, weathering the criticism that comes with it while surviving for his integrity. This is where the show finds its edge and its commentary of the privilege of Wes being a white man with power and influence. Madovi stands out for his audience engagement by the end of the whole crowd became fans of Defy!
What is phenomenal about Caren’s writing and Bailey’s direction is the art of subtlety. Bailey does an incredible job of pulling stellar performances from all three men, every word and joke is heard and held by the audience, yet the subtle commentary drawing on the real world is underlined by his direction. That is what is so unique about Hit Machine, the music industry’s reality is the center of the play, yet it’s nuance and political commentary never has to be explicit to make you think and consider.
The drama of the story unravels with surprise, and the audience is taken on a journey of expectation and fulfillment.
Hit Machine is the epitome of unfinished story in the most authentic way filled with relationships, contemporary parallels, and honesty. To see the fragility of masculinity dismantled through brotherhood and care, to see the limits that family pushes, is inspiring and it is all laced with grace and comedy.
If you want to see a great play with laughter and joy while watching, Hit Machine is absolutely worth it.