By ALAN SMASON, Theatre critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“)
In 2014 when “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” opened at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre in New York, critics and pundits were applauding Jessie Mueller for what seemed an impossible role to fill. Not only did the actress have to emulate the singing style of an iconic American singer; she had to also play piano on stage in time with a live orchestra and make it seem like second nature to her.
In addition, the actress literally ages from a carefree teenager of 16 into a young woman, wife and mother and, eventually, into an established and assured star of the American music theme able to stand on her own. So, aside from an innate talent on the keyboards and great acting ability, the role requires great agility and focus too. In all these qualities and talents, Julia Knitel proves she has more than learned her craft and the titular role while playing as part of the Broadway company under Mueller’s replacement.
Knitel takes command of the opening number, recalling the night in 1971 when King performed for the first time before a live audience at, where else? Carnegie Hall.
Knitel plays a joyful and energetic teenager, eager to become a songwriter despite her mother’s strong insistence she become a teacher, a lesson we should all be glad she did not learn. Along the way she is introduced to a string of singers of popular song – among them the Shirelles, the Drifters, the Coasters – all of whom hung at the building at 1650 Broadway, where impressario Don Kirshner and others held sway. In almost all the cases of the principals from Kirshner on down, they are Jewish.
Hired by Kirschner as a songwriter, she meets her writing partner Gerry Goffin (Liam Tobin) and her almost immediate love interest. King (whose actual last name was Klein) falls hard for Goffin, a chemist who imagines himself a playwright. Tobin plays a difficult role in which he moves from unexpected caring lover to husband to infidel and, eventually, to a pathetic loser with mental disorders and drug addictions.
Even while the musical is subtitled “The Carole King Musical,” the book revolves a good bit on King’s professional life and competition with another famous Jewish boy-girl writing team, that of Barry Mann (Ben Frankhauser) and Cynthia Weil (Erika Olson). Kirshner, played with glee by James Clow, pits the two team against each other in the hopes of eliciting hit after hit for his company. And they do. And he does.
The level of competition aside, the two couples have genuine feelings of friendship for each other, even while they hope to better the other in the Billboard charts.
The musical songs encompass the tail end of the 1950s and the cream of the early 1960s performers. Songs like “It Might As Well Rain Until September,” a song of plaintive teenage love, give way to “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” two songs which show tremendous aptitude for bringing an emotional arc into the lyrics that help transcend the other simpler music of the era.
The cast who portray the Drifters, the Shirelles and others like Little Eva, the Goffins’ babysitter who went to the top of the charts with “The Locomotion,” all do a splendid job of singing the songs of the era and are choreographed beautifully by Josh Prince.
The entire production, directed by Marc Bruni, is sleek with set changes accomplished very smoothly.
The second half opens with “Chains,” one of the songs covered by The Beatles in their early career. It shows a line of demarcation between the two couples’ songwriting successes and the eventual breakup of King’s marriage and writing partnership with Goffin, as he swung out of control in a series of mental breakdowns and acts of infidelity. With the exception of a short reprise of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” the last Goffin-King song that is heard is “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” an indictment of suburban life, which proved to be a hit for the Monkees. Mann and Weil’s “We Gotta Get Out of the Place,” made popular by the Animals, may have been a perfect choice to express the breakup between the mother of two girls and her philandering husband.
It is after that final break that King is able to rise up on her on two artistic feet and break away from writing for others and begin to write the songs and lyrics that have meaning for her and for those who love her music.
At the end of the second act, we are moving into the era of the 1970s as songs like “It’s Too Late,” “You’ve Got a Friend” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” are performed by Knitel as a more resolute and determined King. When she plays the title song “Beautiful” at the end of the show, the audience has taken a full emotionally-charged journey with her.
The natural tendency to rise on “I Feel the Earth” is hard to resist as “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” comes to an end. This is a show that has great staying power and will be difficult to get seats for during this tour.
“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” continues its national tour in cities across the country.
