Sunday, January 12, 2014

201. Review of BEAUTIFUL--THE CAROLE KING SHOW (January 11, 2013)


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.
 

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.