Jessie Mueller as King (photo: Joan Marcus)
There may be some really good reason why this musical about the
life and career of iconic popular Brooklyn-born songstress Carol King is not
titled “A Natural Woman.” That would not only be more apt a description, but it
also would not require the current title to add the identifying “The Carol King
Musical. But let’s not worry about an unfortunate misnomer when there are other
issues at stake in this otherwise snappily-staged, briskly-paced, entertaining
jukebox musical. It is framed with a credibility-stretching book that focuses almost
unexpectedly on the astounding career and extensive canon of two song-writing
couples. They are: King and her first husband, lyricist collaborator Gerry
Goffin, and that of Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann.
With effortless efficiency, the latter couple also composed
hit after hit and shared a long-time friendship as well as a professional
camaraderie with King and Goffin during the 1960s and beyond. So why don’t they
share top billing? It is, after all, a two-for-one or more accurately a four
for one bio musical…no not exactly like “Jersey Boys,” but perhaps in a lesser way
it is.
Although spotlighting the progression of hits within a sympathetically
commemorative, if also amusingly cliché-fed book by Douglas McGrath, there
is the warmly ingratiating performance by Jessie Mueller, not to mention the
parade of hit tunes that are winningly performed with flashy production values.
King’s life is seen in flashback following a brief glance at her in
pretentiously folksy attire in concert at Carnegie Hall in 1971 in the wake of
her hugely successful pop soft rock album “Tapestry.” That concert and the album
were the validation of her meteoric rise to solo stardom following a decade as
a team player with Goffin whom she met while at college.
Getting pregnant and married when she was sixteen was no
obstacle to her drive and ambition or to her ability to achieve early success
grinding out hit after hit for music publisher/entrepreneur Don Kirshner,
played with no peculiar quirks or devious designs on controlling his stable of
recording artists by a convivial Jeb Brown. It was probably enough to dramatize
the reckless, irresponsible and self-absorbed Goffin as the only real turbulence
in King’s early life. Jake Epstein is believable as that neurotic, unfaithful,
womanizer. Although his bout with a nervous breakdown surfaces briefly, drugs
were also probably an issue but not considered among his failings. That the
King-Goffin marriage is text book for too-young-to-know-better portion of the
story, it is offset by the charming interplay between Anika Larsen as lyricist
Weil and Jarrod Spector as composer Mann. I’m sure I won’t be the only one to
see how the two couples have been textured and tempered to fit into a kind of Lucy-Desi-Ethel-Fred-styled
relationship. Blonde and perky Larsen is terrific as the flippantly independent
Weil. The boyish Spector is equally appealing as Mann, a dependent
hypochondriac. Liz Larsen is amusing as Carol’s practical mother Genie
Klein.
If we didn’t know that the script was based on fact, the
progression of then-we-wrote hits and then-we-did events play out as breezily
as they do in any number of preposterously plotted musicals from the 1930s.
There is no fault to be found in the way director Marc Bruni has grounded the surprisingly
unsurprising details of the plot as they transpire within Derek McLane’s tiered
erector-setting and under the dazzling lighting provided by Peter Kaczorowsky.
The musical numbers are fun as we get vivid re-enactments of such renowned
groups as The Drifters and The Shirelles, The Righteous Brothers and even
Little Eva, who was originally hired by King to be a baby-sitter but quickly took
off to become a recording star with “The Loco-Motion,” a notable highlight of
this musical.
Alejo Vietti’s period costumes are spot-on and are as much a
visual pleasure as is the supporting cast, most of whom are barely recognizable
in their get-ups in portraying the various groups as well as characters. Without
differentiating the King-Goffin from the Weil-Mann songbook, audiences will not
be hard-pressed to respond favorably to the mix of more than two dozen songs.
They include “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Take Good Care of My Baby,” “Will You
Love Me, Tomorrow,” “He’s Sure the Boy I Love,” “Walkin’ in the Rain,” and “Uptown.”
This is a show that will undoubtedly make many in the audience feel the glow of
a “Natural Woman.” A comparison to the other juke-box bio “Jersey Boys,” is
inevitable. But let’s not compare it with that phenomenon, but rather take a
cue from Weil’s song that “Happy Days are Here Again.”
“Beautiful – The Carol King Musical”
Stephen Sondheim Theater, 124 W. 43rd
Street
Ticket prices for the Broadway Premiere of Beautiful range
from $75 - $152. Beautiful plays the following schedule: Tuesdays
– Thursdays at 7:00 PM, Wednesdays at
2:00 PM, Fridays at 8:00 PM, Saturdays at 2:00 PM & 8:00 PM, and Sundays at 3:00 PM. For more information, visit
www.beautifulonbroadway.com.
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