Walk into Hudson Yards’ glass-walled Mansion and the show begins before you even find your seat. In the lobby, McQueen’s greatest hits – those scandalous “bumsters,” chain mail, and feathered gowns – are displayed like couture ghosts, daring the play to rise to the same level. It’s a setup dripping with promise: theatre meets fashion, art meets archive. But when House of McQueen finally starts, the drama doesn’t match the clothes.
Directed by Sam Helfrich and written by Darrah Cloud, the off-Broadway premiere has all the trappings of an event: immersive LED panels, high-concept projections, and a bona fide Netflix star in the lead. Luke Newton, fresh from Bridgerton, takes on McQueen with raw nerves and rakish charm. Yet almost every major outlet agrees – the staging struts, the script stumbles.
Critics Say the Storyline Trips on the Runway
The knives came out fast. Sara Holdren at Vulture called the play “repetitive, engineless, and at times borderline incoherent,” bluntly concluding that “both the artist and the man deserve better.” Robert Hofler at TheWrap thought Newton was “beguiling,” but dismissed the whole thing as “Darrah Cloud’s mess of a bioplay.” And Tim Teeman at The Daily Beast didn’t mince words either, writing that McQueen’s life events “jangle in a baffling muddle on stage.”
Those are heavyweight punches, but they all circle the same complaint: for a designer who told stories through fabric, the play can’t tell a story through theatre. The production leans heavily on over 1,000 square feet of LED screens and sleek tech, but critics argue that spectacle can’t replace structure.
Newton, the Exhibit, and the Ghost of the Real McQueen
If there’s one element drawing genuine applause, it’s Luke Newton. He’s more than just Colin Bridgerton in couture drag; reviewers call him layered, magnetic, even heartbreaking in flashes. New York Theatre Guide praised him as “compelling,” noting that his performance hints at depths the script never mines.
The other winner is the lobby exhibit. Both The Daily Beast and New York Theatre Guide point out that the display of more than a dozen original McQueen pieces, including the notorious bumsters, delivers more emotional punch than the drama on stage.
And that contrast matters. McQueen’s legacy is rooted in risk. He once sent Shalom Harlow spinning on a turntable, spray-painted live by robots, at the finale of his 1999 “No. 13” show. He conjured a ghostly Kate Moss hologram in 2006’s Widows of Culloden. These clothes were theatre that made you gasp. Against that backdrop, House of McQueen looks safe, even timid.
The Cultural Takeaway
House of McQueen isn’t a total disaster; it has Newton’s performance, slick design, and a killer lobby exhibit. But when critics from Vulture to The Daily Beast are united in calling the script flat, you know something’s off. For theatre fans, the advice is clear: see it for Newton and the couture, and for the spectacle of seeing McQueen’s world refracted through a different medium.
For McQueen devotees, the real tribute still lives in the archive and in the memories of runway shows that redefined fashion as performance art. In the end, this play may not rewrite his legacy, but if you’re curious, it’s worth experiencing and deciding for yourself.
