201.
BEAUTIFUL—THE CAROLE KING SHOW
If
you happen to be “On Broadway,” in the vicinity of the Stephen Sondheim
Theatre, you’re likely to “Feel the Earth Move under Your Feet,” as the cast of
BEAUTIFUL—THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL gives the show “Some Kind of Wonderful”
performance. In fact, if “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling,” you’ll find it
again at this thoroughly enjoyable jukebox bio-musical about the eponymous
great pop songwriter-singer. I saw it on a very rainy day, but thought, “It Might
as Well Rain Until September” because, for all its minor imperfections, I knew when
it ended that I’d still love this show and its music tomorrow.
The cast of BEAUTIFUL--THE CAROLE KING SHOW. Photo: Joan Marcus.
BEAUTIFUL
joins five other current Broadway jukebox musicals. This particular crop honors
the familiar music of an era (MOTOWN THE MUSICAL; ROCK OF AGES); a singing
group (JERSEY BOYS; MAMMA MIA!); and a singer-songwriter (A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN). Subject-wise,
the Carole King show fits most comfortably next to the one about Janis Joplin. This
sextet of shows also represents several ways (there are others) in which
jukebox musicals can showcase the music they’ve chosen to perform. Thus, with
some overlapping among approaches, we have 1) the bio-musical approach, as
epitomized by MOTOWN, which offers the story of music producer Berry Gordy
within the history of Motown music, and by JERSEY BOYS, dramatizing the story
of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons; 2) the fictional story that
incorporates the big hits of a particular period or artist, as in ROCK
OF AGES and MAMMA MIA!; and 3) the straightforward theatrical concert, as in A NIGHT WITH
JANIS JOPLIN, which allows actors portraying the group or person being idolized
to perform an array of famous numbers, with varying degrees of information (which
can mean barely any) provided to explicate them or comment on the artists’
lives. BEAUTIFUL, of course, belongs to the bio-musical school.
Ms. King, still active at 72, has had a long and enormously successful career, but the show, wisely, covers only her early years, from 1958 through 1971, beginning at the end, during a concert performance by Carole (Jessie Mueller) at Carnegie Hall. It then flashes back to 1958, when Carole (née Klein), a Jewish girl from Brooklyn with a solid training in classical music—and only 16 when she entered Queens College (she skipped two grades)—starts selling songs to music publisher Donnie Kirshner (Jeb Brown) at 1650 Broadway, renowned as a songwriting emporium, like the nearby Brill Building. Rejecting the advice of her divorced mother, Genie (Liz Larsen), to give up songwriting and become a teacher, the precocious Carole soon teams up with fellow Queens College student Gerry Goffin (Jake Epstein), a good-looking chem major and budding lyricist, to write one hit song after the other. Goffin and King befriend another young, Jewish songwriting team working for Kirshner, Cynthia Weil (Anika Larsen) and Barry Mann (Jarrod Spector), and the friendly competition between the couples becomes a driving force pushing everyone’s careers forward. The show makes the point that Carole broke the glass ceiling in music publishing at time when women, like Ms. Weil, in fact, were more likely to be lyricists than composers.
Ms. King, still active at 72, has had a long and enormously successful career, but the show, wisely, covers only her early years, from 1958 through 1971, beginning at the end, during a concert performance by Carole (Jessie Mueller) at Carnegie Hall. It then flashes back to 1958, when Carole (née Klein), a Jewish girl from Brooklyn with a solid training in classical music—and only 16 when she entered Queens College (she skipped two grades)—starts selling songs to music publisher Donnie Kirshner (Jeb Brown) at 1650 Broadway, renowned as a songwriting emporium, like the nearby Brill Building. Rejecting the advice of her divorced mother, Genie (Liz Larsen), to give up songwriting and become a teacher, the precocious Carole soon teams up with fellow Queens College student Gerry Goffin (Jake Epstein), a good-looking chem major and budding lyricist, to write one hit song after the other. Goffin and King befriend another young, Jewish songwriting team working for Kirshner, Cynthia Weil (Anika Larsen) and Barry Mann (Jarrod Spector), and the friendly competition between the couples becomes a driving force pushing everyone’s careers forward. The show makes the point that Carole broke the glass ceiling in music publishing at time when women, like Ms. Weil, in fact, were more likely to be lyricists than composers.
Jessie Mueller and Jake Epstein. Photo: Joan Marcus.
Personal
issues are covered, of course, principally Carole’s romance with, pregnancy by,
marriage to, and divorce from the unfaithful Gerry; there also is Cynthia’s romance with
and, after years of resisting so as not to threaten their partnership, marriage to Barry. The landmark rock and roll and rhythm and blues songs written by Gerry and Carole, and those by Cynthia
and Barry, keep our ears entranced when introduced, usually with some plot
element suggesting what inspired them; some are performed, first, by the
songwriters themselves, and then by the performers Kirshner arranged to have record
them (we see the Shirelles, the Drifters, Little Eva [Ashley Blanchet], and the
Righteous Brothers). As the show winds down, Carole, originally too shy to
think of herself as a performer, finds success in this role after singing at
the Bitter End, following which she moves to California, where she links up
with producer Lou Adler (Kevin Duda). At the end we return to Carnegie Hall, in
1971, not long after Ms. King produced her epochal album, “Tapestry,” for which she
earned multiple Grammys.
From left: Ashley Blanchet, Rashidra Scott, Alysha Deslorieux, Carly Hughes. Photo: Joan Marcus.
As
smartly directed by Marc Bruni, BEAUTIFUL presents us with a trim and tidy
theatrical package, Gerry’s betrayal and Carole’s heartbreak being efficiently
presented with just enough tragic handwringing to vary the fast-moving, upbeat
mood, and with enough gems from the wonderful King and Goffin songbook,
supplemented by others, mainly from Weil and Mann, to keep us happily
glued to our seats. (There’s nearly enough Weil-Mann material to consider
this a joint bio-musical.) Still, the biographical approach covering thirteen years
and the presentation of over two dozen songs in 35 scenes can’t help being
superficial. Life-changing developments happen at warp speed, and, as in
similar shows, it’s difficult to avoid the “and then I wrote . . .” syndrome
from overwhelming the proceedings. Moreover, given the plethora of shows in
recent years highlighting the changing hair and clothing fashions from the
1950s on, we once again see a wigmaker (Charles G. LaPointe) and costume
designer (Alejo Vietti) having a ball recreating those familiar period looks. Book writer Doug McGrath’s necessarily episodic
and rather one-dimensional script manages to fulfill its tasks better
than most such efforts and to insert just enough humor to balance the occasionally
more poignant moments.
But,
let’s face it, the scripts in shows like this exist mainly to provide a
viable framework on which to hang a string of musical numbers. The
scenes come and go so swiftly they have no time to be more than sketches,
giving us just enough information to help us appreciate the world in
which the songs were created, supplying them with additional resonance; it’s the
songs themselves we’re really most interested in, and BEAUTIFUL serves up a
robust platter of iconic tunes by the featured songwriters (as well as snippets
from other contemporary tunesmiths working at 1650 Broadway—singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka (Kevin Duda) makes a couple of brief
appearances, singing his “Oh, Carol” tribute song).
Since most such songs were about 3 minutes in length, no single number
dominates the show nor are there any true show stoppers, although the several
reprises of the still heart-tugging “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” probably
make that song stand out most vividly.
We
get many songs sung at the piano by the songwriters themselves, as they try
them out for others or themselves, but the full production numbers go to the artists playing
the Drifters, the Shirelles, the Righteous Brothers, and Little Eva; only the
Righteous Brothers (Josh Davis and Kevin Duda), who sing Weil and Mann's “You’ve Lost That
Lovin’ Feeling,” are white, by the way, as the songs that rocketed King and
company to stardom were sung mainly by black artists. So we watch the Shirelles
run through “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” and the Drifters sell “Some Kind of
Wonderful” and “Up on the Roof.” These are choreographed by Josh Prince to
resemble the slick group performance style of the 1960s, but if you check out the
originals on YouTube you can see how Mr. Prince has upgraded and enhanced routines
that were much simpler when first presented.
It’s
Carole King’s show, so Jessie Mueller, in that role, gets to carry the bulk of
the singing and acting, and she gives a truly sincere and appealing performance
of a talented woman not known for her glamour, who, in fact, speaks with
comical deprecation about her own physical shortcomings. Her Carole, whose
speech carries definite echoes of her Brooklyn upbringing (“saung” for “song,”
for example) comes off as a decent, ambitious, middle-class girl with a great
talent but no particular emotional or self-abusive habits; her modesty even makes
her decline to take part in a game of strip poker and, despite the inclinations
of the period, she doesn’t indulge in inappropriate substances. For Carole, the
height of contentment is having a home in the suburbs where she can raise a family.
Jessie Mueller. Photo: Joan Marcus.
The
show, in fact, borders on the squeaky clean, and I don’t recall hearing any
profanities, which is not quite the image one has of the entertainment business
of that or any other period. Carole is a good mother and a good daughter, with
a close relationship to her mom, an unproduced playwright (as, oddly, is Gerry’s
father). Ms. Mueller looks enough like the Carole King of the 1960s to get away
with the impersonation (although a slight nose bump might have been useful), especially as aided by her basic hairstyles (before all
those curls) and moderately frumpy clothing. She sings Ms. King’s songs
with every bit of vulnerability, enthusiasm, and insight they require. Carole
King, as shown here, is not some kind of star teetering on the brink of a psychological
breakdown, although she does have several opportunities to emote with anger and
frustration. She’s a grounded, stable person, so playing her requires subtlety and
natural warmth. Ms. Mueller, one of Broadway’s brightest rising stars, has all
the qualities to make this role her own and, when she sings “(You Make Me Feel
Like) a Natural Woman,” it takes no effort to believe her.
As
Cynthia Weil, Anika Larsen gives us a stylish, attractive blonde, making an
ideal contrast with the more down-to-earth Carole (before her "earth mother" image); she’s a terrific singer, a
friendly presence, and a fine comedienne. Jarrod Spector’s Barry Mann is convincing
as the handsome Don Juan of a composer who falls for Cynthia after becoming her
writing partner. Jake Epstein, as Gerry, is first seen as a kind of Danny
Zuko-like student, in black leather jacket and black jeans; however, the
character quickly belies this image by his musical talent. He, if anyone, is
the show’s villain, because of his marital infidelities. Mr. Epstein is
attractive and sings well but is not completely credible in his more emotional
scenes. Jeb Brown is serviceable in the non-singing role of Donnie Kirshner, who later became a major concert producer and celebrity in his own right.
Derek
McLane’s set, a combination of a two-tiered open structure at the rear, and
various decorative sliding panels and scenic units, provides a practicable environment
for this multi-scened show, allowing
scenes to move on and off rapidly and for multiple spaces to be visible
simultaneously. Peter Kaczorowski’s variable lighting effects do everything
possible to augment the show’s visual appeal, and Steve Sidwell’s
orchestrations do the same for the aural dimension. We get a helpful hint of
the value of good orchestrations, in fact, when Carole plays a song for the Shirelles
and mentioning as she plays the kind of instruments that will be introduced at
certain points, with the pit musicians providing just those sounds as she does
so.
In
addition to the songs already mentioned, the show includes Ms. King’s “So Far Away,”
“It’s Too Late” (lyrics by Toni Stern), King and Goffin’s “Take Good Care of My
Baby,” “Chains,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” with other songs from Mann and Goffin
(“Who Put the Bomp”), and Weil and Mann (“He’s Sure the Boy I Love,” “Walking
in the Rain,” and “Uptown”). If you’re too young or too old to be familiar with these
songs, now’s as good a chance as any to give them a listen. The show itself
takes its title from the final song heard before the curtain call
encore. It ends with:
You’ve
got to get up every morning
With
a smile on your face
And
show the world all the love in your heart
Then
people gonna treat you better
You’re
gonna find, yes, you will
That
you’re beautiful
You’re
beautiful
As
you feel.
I guarantee many people are going to smile and feel beautiful when they walk out of the
Sondheim at the end of BEAUTIFUL--THE CAROLE KING SHOW.