Theater Review: BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL (National Tour)

MAKING YOUR MUSIC MATTER

If notes make joy, these 150 minutes are the elixir of happiness. Spanning only 13 years of its creator’s career (1958-1971), Beautiful: The Carole King Musical balances life against art. Magnificently. Its wonderful songs both stand on their own and preserve the pain and pleasure that went into their making.

Douglas McGrath’s perfect-pitch script shows how a shy Brooklyn girl named Carole Klein turns composer to find her sound. After sorting out a collaborative, then destructive, marriage, in her ground-breaking Tapestry album and Carnegie Hall concert, Carole King finds her voice too. Paraphrasing the Irving Berlin lyric, “She said it with music.”

Now playing Chicago’s Cadillac Palace Theatre in a national tour staged with conviction and class by Marc Bruni, Beautiful is that rare jukebox musical: The story is as crucial as the songs. Each inseparable element explores and expands the other. Sarah Bockel captures Carole’s every compelling contradiction as, driven to put tunes together, the 16-year-old apprentice songwriter grows into a 28-year-old artist who’s paid her dues. Along the way, over two dozen chart-busting standards chronicle King’s constant private-versus-public crisis—how to balance love and work with a soulmate who inspires and enrages you.

Welcomed by recoding mogul Don Kirshner (James Clow) to his seminal studio at 1650 Broadway, a teenage Carole earns an early success with “It Might As Well Rain Until September.” It’s the first inevitable ballad to spring effortlessly from a very musical mind. There she hooks up with two other “Be-Bop-A-Lula” legends-to-be–lyricist Cynthia Weil (a radiant Sarah Goeke) and composer Barry Mann (a charming Jacob Heimer). Volatile and ambitious hopefuls too busy to settle into marriage, this rock ‘n roll team will become worthy rivals and non-negotiable friends, helping the young dreamer to make her style if only by process of elimination.

But competition isn’t catalyst enough for this future phenom. She needs to infuse melodies with love. That comes with her future husband and musical muse Gerry Goffin (charismatic Andrew Brewer). As time turns out, they put words and notes together (‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”, “Take Good Care of My Baby”) much better than her shy devotion and his wild side can ever meld.

Sung in rich recreations of Neil Sedaka (John Michael Dias) and doo-wop’s legendary The Shirelles, The Drifters and the Righteous Brothers, triumphs from both teams come fast and happy: “Up on the Roof,” “Who Put the Bomp,” “On Broadway,” “The Locomotion,” “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” irresistible temptations to dance in the aisle. Only when Janelle Woods (McKynleigh Alden Abraham) croons “One Fine Day,” seemingly singing only for a very appreciative Gerry, does Carole realize her rose just lost its bloom.

The second act contrasts Carole’s life-support marriage with her imaginative fluorescence as she creates new flavors for The Bitter End, half-heartedly flirting with hippy guitarist Nick (Matt Faucher). Hungry for more than life can grant, womanizing Gerry succumbs to a breakdown driven by drugs and more conflicting desires that any marriage could resolve. Moving to the New Jersey suburbs (“Pleasant Valley Sunday”) can’t cure a hunger without the food to end it. Ironically, just as Carole’s too-early marriage founders, Barry and Cynthia finally commit. It was worth the wait.

Breaking up with her help(less)mate (“It’s Too Late”), Carole embarks for—or escapes to—Los Angeles, giving Barry and Cynthia the parting gift of “You’ve Got A Friend.” (It’s her response to their “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.”) Free to be full and finding a second powerful patron in Lou Adler (Dias), Carole discovers talent is her ticket, not her looks (“Beautiful”). Gloriously, she cinches fame with her solo sensation “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”–no feminist icon but definitely sex on a score. As it began with “So Far Away,” the musical comes full circle to Carnegie Hall. Carole King is fully completed–by herself.

The songs—themselves a 2015 Grammy Winner–are equal to the journey. Apart from its totally justified nostalgia, Beautiful glows with superb storytelling, impeccably illustrated by Susan Draus’s musical direction and Josh Prince’s period-preserving choreography. Derek McClane’s supple modular sets instantly set their scenes. Alejo Vietti’s rapid-changing costumes are dated in just the best way.

Whether or not “she wrote the soundtrack to a generation,” as the press release extols, these Beautiful songs carry the emotional weight of snapshots in a family album.

photos by Matthew Murphy

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
national tour presented by Broadway in Chicago
Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St.
Tues.-Fri. at 7:30, Sat. at 8, Wed., Sat. and Sun. at 2; Sat. at 8
ends on Jan. 28, 2018
for tickets, call (80o) 775-2000 or visit Broadway in Chicago

TOUR CONTINUES INTO 2018
FOR DATES, CITIES, AND TICKETS, VISIT BEAUTIFUL

for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago