THIS RETROSPECTIVE ON NEIL DIAMOND SPARKLES
When one thinks back to the top solo music acts of the 1970s, the biggest names to come to mind are likely Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Barry Manilow, Barbra Streisand, and Donna Summer. But one man, with less fanfare perhaps, outsold them all. In fact, he outsold Elvis Presley − packing stadiums and releasing hit after hit. Thirty-seven American top-40 hits, ten of them reaching the number one spot, belong to the legendary Neil Diamond. But it almost didn’t happen.
Anthony McCarten’s book for A Beautiful Noise tells the story of a man driven to write music, but never intending to perform it himself. It was only the encouragement of others that pushed the man behind the music into the spotlight of the stage and even into film as his star rose. The adjustment to stardom for this small-scale family man wasn’t easy and we watch the trials and tribulations of being on the road, learning the hard way how people will take advantage of you, and trying to risk temptation along the way.
A Beautiful Noise, which opened on Broadway in December of 2022, is designed as a memory play. It starts off with an older Neil (Robert Westenberg), now off-tour and struggling with Parkinson’s Disease, sitting in sessions with his therapist (Lisa Reneé Pitts). She isn’t familiar with him, much to his shock, so Neil has the chance to tell us about his life, but he isn’t comfortable doing so, pushing back against the doctor repeatedly. As a way in with him, she uses lyrics she finds from his songs, asking him to tell the story behind them, opening him up in the process.
2015 American Idol winner Nick Fradiani is the tour’s centerpiece as the young Neil, going from just hoping to sell a song to selling out huge national tours. As an American Idol fan, I knew he was a capable singer, but was curious if they were just playing off a big name. Nope. Vocally, he’s dead on as Neil, particularly in “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” where the precision was so on target that it almost could have been a lip sync (but was ever-so-different enough for us to know it was truly Nick). The acting role of younger Neil isn’t as varied; he’s pretty much one note of soft-spoken, self-deprecating nice guy throughout. But a monologue set to music at the top of Act II is particularly challenging and Nick nails it.
All of the music is Neil’s so fans can’t possibly be disappointed by that. What the shows does really well, though, unlike the often-disparaged Mamma Mia!, is make sense of every lyric. In the aforementioned, you have to pretty much ignore most of the lyrics Abba coined to enjoy the show. Here, McCarten selects just the parts needed to work, sometimes having an actor sing just a verse from a song if it’s the only one that works, giving this show better continuity. Also unlike Mamma Mia!, which wasn’t about a singer, there’s plenty of time for Fradiani to just sing some songs because we’re the audience at concert tours so McCarten doesn’t have to conjure up a character named Cracklin’ Rose for Fradiani to sing that song.
Under Michael Mayer’s direction, in the purposefully-slower parts of the show, Westenberg is moving in his attempt to resist, falteringly, the doctor’s attempts to get inside, particularly his childhood. This leads to a performance behind the pair of the overly-familiar “America” that is refreshingly touching. The outstanding orchestra and dance team bring all of the numbers to life in spectacle after spectacle.
Hannah Jewel Kohn as Marcia Murphey, Nick Fradiani as Neil (Then), and The Noise
The most captivating performer was neither of the men. Any time Hannah Jewel Kohn takes the stage as Diamond’s second wife, Marcia, she’s a magnet to the eye. She has a charisma that reminded me of a young Ann-Margaret and a voice that feels like it could star on the Grand Ol’ Opry as easily as a concert stage, especially through the interpretation of “Forever in Blue Jeans.” Even in the curtain calls, Kohn took one final, effortless-looking kick over her own head as she walked off – an exclamation point on the sentence of everything else she brought to the stage.
Also terrific (and bringing some great levity right off the bat) is Kate A. Mulligan as the prolific singer-songwriter and music producer Ellie Greenwich, who Diamond credits with “discovering” him and encouraging him first to keep writing and then to sing for himself, rather than just songwriting.
A Beautiful Noise blends great music with a good, if somewhat predictable, story and enough humor to make it an excellent entertainment choice – especially for us fans of the man who has had generations yelling “So good! So good! So good!” to “Sweet Caroline” for over fifty years and counting. This audience was certainly up for the callback to Fradiani on that one.
photos by Jeremy Daniel
A Beautiful Noise
national tour
presented by Broadway San Diego at Civic Theatre, 1100 Third Avenue
for tickets, call 619.564.3000 or visit BroadwaySD
ends in SD on June 1, 2025
tour continues; for dates and cities, visit www.abeautifulnoisethemusical.com
