“Beautiful” delivers more than music
The musical biography of Carole King succeeds in capturing the high points of a remarkable career while also delivering insight into some of the heartbreaks along the way.
There are two essential requisites for any jukebox musical: a score of enduring songs performed to the standards of the original artist, and an engaging story that provides a framework for the music. Broadway Grand Rapids’ touring production of “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” succeeds on both counts.
Sarah Bockel, in the title role, brings this musical biography to life with strong vocals in a host of Carole King songs and a believable acting performance that captures the high points of a remarkable career while also delivering insight into some of the heartbreaks along the way.
Bockel bears a remarkable resemblance to King physically and vocally. She is also up to the task of bringing her subject from a shy giggling schoolgirl into full bloom as the mature woman and confident artist she becomes in the 1970s.
Douglas McGrath’s strong book also helps delineate King’s growth with short bold strokes that establish supporting characters and their roles in shaping her life.
Andrew Brewer, as the emotionally unstable Gerry Goffin, is appropriately both charming and dangerous as the husband and writing partner who takes King on an emotional roller coaster.
Adding dimension and contrast to King’s stormy marriage are the song writing team of Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, who produce a string of hits throughout their on and off relationship. Sarah Goeke, as the confidently independent Weil, shines in numbers such as “Happy Days are Here Again” and “Walking in the Rain.” Jacob Heimer, as Barry Mann, renders the anxious mercurial genius and hypochondriac behind the music of songs like “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.”
Although the star of this show is Carole King’s music, audience members will find a welcome bonus in the behind-the-scenes look this show provides into the record industry of the late 1950s and early ‘60s. Don Kirshner’s studio at 1650 Broadway is the backdrop for much of King’s early creative efforts, including her initial success, “It Might as Well Rain Until September.”
In this studio setting, the musical gathers momentum with a seemingly non-stop medley of up-tempo songs of the period such as “Love Potion No. 9,” “Stupid Cupid,” “Splish Splash,” and “Poison Ivy” illustrating the fast-paced hit machine to which King is about to hitch her wagon.
Also revealing are the scenes in which King hones and perfects songs like “Take Good Care of My Baby” at the piano with Gerry Goffin. Of equal interest is her arrangement of strings for the Shirelles’ version of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.” King’s insecurities seem to diminish with each hit record, as her love life and song writing ability both grow and flourish in the first act.
Other Act I standout numbers include The Drifters’ rendition of “Up on the Roof” and their snappy and strutting choreography for “On Broadway,” a Weil and Mann number. Alexis Tidwell’s Little Eva is a delight to watch as she chugs her way through King’s “Locomotion.”
A highlight of Act I is the dynamic Righteous Brothers blue-eyed soul ballad, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin,” performed with needle-drop perfection by Jordan Edwin Andre and John Michael Dias. The song helps set the scene for the breakup that follows.
Toward the end of the first half of the evening, as a girl group performs “One Fine Day” on NBC television, Goffin lowers the boom on his wife by telling her he wants to play around with the lead singer. A devastated King then sings a poignant counterpoint for the same song, normally one of her most uplifting numbersm as the act ends and major marital problems begin.
In Act II, Sarah Bockell, at the piano and at the microphone, shows King’s musical rise through the social changes of the 1960s. We see her grow out of doo-wop years with Goffin into the more meaningful and thoughtful ballads she became famous for in the early 1970s while writing alone.
Several people assist King in her growth, both as a writer and as a performer. Not the least of these is her mother, played as a sympathetic and supportive nudge by Suzanne Grodner.
The culmination of King’s career is featured in the play’s final scenes as she records and performs songs from the best-selling multi-Grammy winning album, “Tapestry,” including the ultimate break-up song “It’s Too Late.”
After hearing a string of show closers like “You’ve Got a Friend” “A Natural Woman,” “Beautiful,” the curtain call number “I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet,” and a host of other hit songs, those attending this production might be repeating what one exiting patron was overheard saying about Carole King after Tuesday’s opening performance:
“I can’t believe she wrote that too!”
“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical”
Words and Music by Gerry Goffin & Carole King and Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil
Book by Douglas McGrath
Performing now with Broadway Grand Rapids at Devos Performance Hall
February 13–18
Tickets available online here or at the door.
