The New York Times

The New York Times is a major American newspaper that appears here not as a neutral background institution but as an authoritative arbiter of vampire culture in the theatre marketplace. Its review of Lestat, the musical adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire, supplied one of the production’s most memorable public judgments and helped frame the show as an example of how a celebrated vampire property could fail when transferred to the stage.

The Lestat Review

On 26 April 2006, theatre critic Ben Brantley reviewed Lestat after its opening at the Palace Theatre. He began with a pharmaceutical joke, presenting the musical as a new prescription sleeping aid joining Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata, and other “prescription lullaby drugs.” The comparison reduced the production’s supposed dramatic energy to sedation and immediately established the review’s governing tone: the vampire musical was not frightening, seductive, or theatrically potent, but soporific.

Brantley’s criticism became more pointed as he assessed the adaptation itself. He called Lestat “undignified” and “stiff, sub-Heathcliffian,” treating its romantic Gothic inheritance as mannered rather than compelling. Armand, in his account, was played as “a sustained hissy fit,” while the production as a whole was described as a “whinefest.” The review therefore attacked both the show’s literary register and its performance style, presenting its emotional intensity as monotonous complaint rather than tragic grandeur.

Sexual Allegory and Critical Framing

The New York Times review also interpreted the musical’s treatment of sexuality as a central weakness. Brantley urged theatre-goers to resist what he called the production’s “soporific spell” by amusing themselves with its heavy-handed “homosexuality as affliction” allegory. This formulation made the show’s gay-vampire subtext visible while judging its execution reductive. The issue was not simply that the musical included queer material; the criticism was that it converted homosexuality into an overinsistent allegorical burden instead of allowing the characters and relationships to carry greater complexity.

That judgment placed Lestat within a broader critical dispute over whether popular vampire narratives could connect erotic otherness with serious artistic representation. The review’s language simultaneously acknowledged the allegory and dismissed its delivery. The musical’s attempt to associate vampiric difference, suffering, and homosexuality thus became evidence of dramaturgical heaviness rather than a successful challenge to conventional theatrical form.

A Wider Critical Consensus

The New York Times review was part of an almost universally negative response. Peter Marks of The Washington Post argued that Lestat demonstrated that a gay vampire with a two-octave range could be just as dull as a straight one. The New York Post compressed its verdict into the headline “Bloody Awful.” Together, these responses show how the production’s failure was circulated through several influential newspapers, with The New York Times providing the most elaborate critical account and other outlets reinforcing its basic conclusion.

The newspaper’s importance therefore lies not only in the individual wit of Brantley’s phrases but also in the institutional force of the review. A major adaptation of Interview With The Vampire arrived with the prestige of Anne Rice, Elton John, and Bernie Taupin, yet the critical press translated that prestige into a public narrative of disappointment. The New York Times helped make the musical’s reception legible as a cultural event rather than merely a disappointing night at the theatre.

Commercial Consequences

Lestat remained on Broadway for only nine weeks before closing permanently. An original cast recording was made on 22 May 2006, but Elton John subsequently announced that it would not be released commercially. The review did not alone cause those outcomes, and the evidence does not establish a direct causal chain from Brantley’s article to the closing or the recording decision. It did, however, record and sharpen the production’s collapse at the moment when artistic credibility and commercial viability were being publicly tested.

The episode also establishes a contrast with later discussion of vampire musicals. Frank Wildhorn’s Dracula sold out its opening night at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2001, although its Broadway transfer in 2004 received mostly negative reviews. That show was revised before moving to Europe, where the new version became a major international success. Against that trajectory, The New York Times review of Lestat stands as a particularly clear document of failed adaptation: it captures the point at which vampire mythology, star power, popular music, and Broadway spectacle did not cohere into a sustainable theatrical form.