Jessie Mueller in Beautiful — The Carole King Musical at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, New York. Picture: Joan Marcus
Beautiful – The Carole King Musical continues at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, New York, in an open-ended run.
According to the programme for Beautiful – The Carole King Musical, the songwriter has had more than 400 of her compositions recorded by more than 1,000 artists, generating 100 hit singles. And many of those tunes, which helped define American popular music in the 1960s, remain beloved today, judging by the reaction of the audience at the performance reviewed of this new Broadway musical. Just the mention of a phrase from a song in the show’s dialogue seemed to ignite recognition and anticipation from the onlookers. Attending the show is something akin to participating in a love fest, while it provides a simplified rendering of the early part of King’s life and career (she wrote her first hit while still a teenager) up to her blossoming as a performer as well as a composer with her landmark 1971 album Tapestry.
The book by filmmaker and playwright Douglas McGrath is a mild-mannered affair, studded with enough laugh lines to keep lassitude away, even as it portrays the pop music world rather blandly as being populated by some of the nicest people you could ever imagine. Much of the story centres on King’s first and youthful marriage to Gerry Goffin, who wrote lyrics for her melodies until their marriage fell apart at the end of the 1960s. Also important in the story is the couple’s close friendship with another songwriting team, Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann.
The two couples compete in good spirit through Act I to churn out chart-making songs for pop groups of the day under the jocular but avuncular guidance of publisher and music producer Don Kirshner; the songs are then performed in showstopping style by such groups as The Shirelles and The Drifters, As this cycle goes on and on, Beautiful – The Carole King Musical begins to bear an almost uncomfortable resemblance to Motown the Musical, the Broadway hit which celebrates another music-producing titan of the era, Berry Gordy, the founder of and force behind Motown Records. Even though the numbers performed in Act I of Beautiful, such as ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’ and ‘On Broadway’ are done in great style, it’s Motown that wins this particular competition. The ranks of Gordy’s artists had more variety, their performance style more sizzle and their personas more drama. However, it should be noted that Beautiful – The Carole King Musical stands head and shoulders above the terribly tepid 2011 Broadway musical, Baby It’s You, which dealt with the same milieu.
Beautiful also gains in distinction in Act II, when King finds her own voice as a performer as well as a writer, and the rendering of such signature songs as ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ and ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’ resonate with more dramatic heft. It’s also in Act II, that Jessie Mueller’s always engagingly believable portrayal of King is allowed to take on greater depth, and she scores grandly, giving Beautiful – The Carole King Musical a beautiful centre. She captures King’s quiet charisma and vulnerability, and she makes the musical numbers her own.
The other principles in the cast – including Jake Epstein as the troubled Goffin and Anika Larsen and Jarrod Spector as the bubbly Weil and Mann – are also impressive in demonstrating both musical and thesping skills. Marc Bruni’s direction gives the straightforward narrative of the script admirable pacing. His work, aided by Josh Prince’s slight but jaunty choreography, Derek McLane’s imaginative and eye-grabbing sets and Peter Kaczorowski’s lighting, is particularly noteworthy in depicting the hive of music-making in the Times Square building that housed Kirschner’s songwriters.
For dyed-in-the-wool Carole King fans, Beautiful – The Carole King Musical may indeed be orgasmic. For others, it still provides the opportunity to appreciate the work of dedicated Broadway pros assembling a jukebox musical successfully if not triumphantly.
Ron Cohen
Read Ron Cohen’s latest update on the Broadway and Off-Broadway scene in issue five of Musical Theatre Review, out on 30 January.
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