REVIEW: Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (Olney Theatre Center)
“Beautiful”.
Objectively one of the English language’s highest honors for aesthetic virtue, its airy opening vowels lead into a rich verbal conclusion. People don’t tend to use it lightly, but it is wide in its application. In music, there’s a whole school of theory about music aesthetics and what that means. But regardless of the theoretical approach, musicians and academics can probably agree: Tapestry by Carole King is a great album, including the song “Beautiful”, the titular inspiration for King’s bio-musical now playing in Olney. Unfortunately, the song doesn’t quite describe their season-closing production, one with disappointingly bland production design and a contrite libretto.
Book/Music
Let’s get one thing clear: I’m a huge fan of Carole King’s music. Tapestry’s radically self-determinate lyrics and production changed pop music for the betterl; it’s a classic album. But that’s the extent of my enjoyment of Beautiful. In a way, it represents much of what’s wrong with American theatre: shameless cash-grab pop covers masquerading as a Broadway-caliber piece of performance art. Douglas McGrath has hastily stapled together all of the blue links in the 1960’s subsection of King’s “Career” section on her Wikipedia page, added several of her hit songs from the era (and some that weren’t hers), then turned it in as if it made for emphatic drama. Whether it’s a case of just poor writing or if King’s life just isn’t that theatrical is anyone’s guess. Each scene is presented (almost accidentally) like a series of vignettes: “We’ve gotta write a hit song! What are we going to do?!” Cue set change, cue 1960’s Top 40 hit being sung by [insert soul/pop/rock-n-roll act here]. In between, we’re treated with what appear to be conflicts in the personal life of King, including those in her passionless marriage/partnership with Gerry Goffin and apparent “friendship” (if you can call it that, with what little chemistry existed) with fellow songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. All of her relationships as written feel less genuine than any given interaction with the notoriously flirty Trader Joe’s cashiers. Unclear time skips, exposition that’s present when unneeded and absent when it is, and fallible name-drops all just add to the agony.
Jukebox musicals can be good, mind you: Jersey Boys is incredible, Swept Away was a smash last year, and Mamma Mia is the pinnacle of unbridled fun. The common threads there are that they bring something more than a 1,000-word essay on the topic. (The documentary-style narrative of Jersey was groundbreaking and the shipwrecked perils in Swept were thrilling.) It’s hard to believe that just a year ago this same stage played host to a different kind of jukebox: the outstanding Fela!, which genuinely had the Earth moving under our feet nightly. 0/10
Acting
YouTube singing star Natalie Weiss plays King, and is damn good at it, making the wait for her next spin on the keys one of the more exciting elements. Her careful, yet friendly demeanor is supplanted by a powerhouse voice that does the songs well. She is a joy to watch in this role and I am glad they made this choice. The ensemble, though, then is left to compete for second fiddle. (I award it to the soulful swagger of Calvin McCullogh’s Barry Mann, whose renditions evolving over the course of the show were great but ironically unsung by the book). 5/10
Production
The set design is two two-tiered framed platforms that can swivel to face the front or side, adorned with simplistic lighting. In front is a sheen theater curtain that allows any rear distractions to be obscured. At many occasions throughout the show, the curtain lowered and caught on the balcony on one of the platforms. The first two times were quickly handled by stage hands, truly the backbone of this industry, but on the third time it appeared to be caught on itself, leaving the curtain off-kiltered and partially furled. Normally, I have a degree of understanding if this happens once or twice (especially if it’s in previews), but for a show this high-budget and after weeks of rehearsal it was surprising to see on opening night. Beyond this: there’s a small, movable center platform where they have some of the action, but when it lowers it takes a distractingly long time to return, rendering whole scenes to play out with a gaping hole in the stage. Personally it felt as though the set was rather over-engineered for a piece of this simplicity, to its detriment as it allows more potential points of failure.
Visually, it was none too impressive; besides some gleefully patterned costumes by Kendra Rai, I found most elements rudimental. In particular, many of the wigs were of a state that elicited gasps and sneers from my section whenever a new one would appear on stage: the oversized afros, Halloween-quality beards, and plasticky ‘dos were not to par with Olney’s previous aesthetic work. 2/10
Viz
With a name like Carole King attached to it, what marketing do you really need to do? This is evident in the promotional materials, which just features a piano and some sheet music flying out of it. As it happens, this is exactly how the show is presented when you walk in: art deco motifs frame a piano that stands against a royally violet curtain. Simple, but low-hanging fruit to pick. 4/10
Verdict
Beautiful is hardly so— an example of the literary shoddiness of modern jukebox musicals, put on with threadbare consideration of its talented stars. 11/40
