Neil Diamond is the subject of Broadway's latest jukebox musical

 

     Usually the weakest element in a jukebox musical is the book.  While not great, Anthony McCarten’s book for A Beautiful Noise is serviceable, especially in the first act.  The weakest element is Steven Hoggett’s choreography (more about that later).  Unfortunately for this latest offering in the genre, which features the music of Neil Diamond, the one part of any show that absolutely must be strong, the lead character, misses the mark.  Will Swenson, Broadway veteran that he is, never fully embodies the superstar he is portraying at the Broadhurst Theatre.   

     This is most obvious in the second act when the songwriter from Flatbush, Brooklyn, has become a megastar, filling stadiums and arenas as the biggest box office draw in the world, knocking Elvis out of that distinction.  Swenson’s voice has the intonation and strength of Diamond’s but he lacks the magnetism of performance that filled those venues for decades.  I was always aware he was an actor playing a part rather than becoming the star the way Myles Frost transforms into Michael Jackson in MJ.

     Maybe this is because Frost grew up emulating Jackson and spent years perfecting Jackson’s moves and voice.  Swenson also grew up with an awareness of the pop star he is portraying, but it was his father who love Diamond.  “My dad liked Neil so much that there was a picture of him hanging up in our garage,” he said in an interview with Playbill.  “He was always playing Neil on a loop; he never took that tape out of his car.”

     But while Diamond’s infectious tunes were the soundtrack of Swenson’s childhood, the singer was his father’s idol, not his.  It was dad music.  He knows the songs but doesn’t have the presence.

     The show opens with an aged and reluctant Diamond (Mark Jacoby) sitting stubbornly quiet in the office of the psychologist (Linda Powell) his third wife, Katie (unseen), and children nudged him to meet with for his depression, which we learn as the story unfolds was something he lived with throughout his life.  The nameless therapist knows he’s famous but seems to have never heard of him, which is hard to believe.  If she was expecting a new patient who was famous don't you think she would have Googled him to get to know a bit about him?  In an effort to draw him out she buys a book of his lyrics and is excited that she knows one of the songs —he wrote nearly 100.  Maybe that was supposed to be funny but I thought it was silly.  But her approach works as Diamond opens up about what those songs meant to him.

     “When I hit that first cord, the clouds lift.”

     I like the device McCarten uses to launch the heart of the story, which is certainly an interesting one.  He has the therapist pick one song each session to talk about.  It’s a good way to bring the songs into the show and unpack Diamond’s past.  Unfortunately director Michael Mayer brings on a herd of young dancers to accompany each song.  Clad in colorful play clothes that give a suggestion of the 1960s (costumes by Emilio Sosa), they bop around the stage like a bunch of hyperactive amebas, with every dance number looking the same.  They are annoying. 

     We learn that Diamond, this man who could sell out stadiums, set out to be a songwriter rather than a performer.  He sold his first song at 15 and his first hit, “I’m a Believer,” was a chart topper for the Monkees. 

     It is Ellie Greenwich (Bri Sudia), a powerful producer in the Brill Building, who discovers what would be Diamond’s ultimate path.  She had been assigning his songs — “The Boat That I Row,” “Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow), “Red, Red, Wine” —to singers until one day Diamond interrupts one young man, played by Max Sangerman, as he sings “Kentucky Woman.”  Diamond suggests a different interpretation.  Greenwich realizes that he is the one who should be singing his songs and coaxes him into an appearance at the Village’s Bitter End cafe.  He’s frightened at first but warms up as he sings “Solitary Man,” magnetizing the audience.  The elder Diamond tells his therapist, “It was the first time I ever really felt alive.” He returns until the inevitable record contracts and large engagements follow.

     In these Act One scenes Swenson as the insecure Diamond is believable.  It’s in Act Two with Diamond clad in sequined suits singing to thousands that he loses the character.  

     All of this is to say that while the show could have been better I still enjoyed it.  I never owned any of Diamond’s records but I’ve listened to his songs on the radio since I was in elementary school.  It’s been years now, if not decades, since I heard them because I listen almost exclusively to jazz and country/folk/Americana on WAER from Syracuse University.  I enjoyed reconnecting with “America,””Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show,” “Cherry, Cherry,” “Cracklin’ Rosie” “Forever in Blue Jeans,” “Holly Holy,” “I Am. . .I Said” and “Shilo,” among others.  

     Not to be forgotten, of course, is “Sweet Caroline,” which lit up the audience as the Act One closer and had us on our feet clapping and singing along at the curtain call.  That was fun.  

     So it goes for another jukebox musical on Broadway.  

All-Black cast energizes 'Death of a Salesman'

 

     I was unprepared for the emotional impact director Miranda Cromwell’s revival of Death of a Salesman would have on me.  I haven't felt so moved since the first time I saw this Arthur Miller classic when I was 17 and went into it cold.

     Willy's death shook me deeply then and it did again yesterday thanks to Wendell Pierce’s powerful, fully human performance.  But I grieved for another character as well this time, Linda, Willy's devoted wife.  As portrayed by Sharon D. Clarke this Linda is a woman of our time, a feminist Linda who isn’t diminished by Willy's temper and insults.  

     Linda has always come off to me as a servile, 1950s TV wife with a “Yes, dear” attitude who cowered under Willy's verbal abuse.  When Willy yells at Clarke’s Linda to be quiet she stops talking but her gestures and expressions say plenty.  She’s no doormat.  She’s Willy’s equal and when she tells her sons she loves him I had no doubt.  In the past I’ve thought she was just kidding herself.

     This revival, at the Hudson Theatre, is the first time the 1949 play has been done on Broadway with an all-Black cast.  Broadway lags way behind Baltimore’s Center Stage in that regard.  The 1972 production I saw was the first time Salesman had been done by an all-Black professional cast in this country.  Miller came to the opening.  In a program note he wrote: “I have felt for many years that particularly with this play, which has been so well received in so many countries and cultures, that the black actor would have an opportunity, if that is needed anymore, to demonstrate all his common humanity and his talent.”  Obviously it was still needed because it took 50 years for it to happen on Broadway. 

     I’ve seen the play at least three other times — in 1983 at Syracuse Stage and the Broadway revivals in 1999 and 2012, with all white casts, of course, and I’ve read it I don’t know how many times through my three degrees in English.  Because of that I was reluctant to see it again.  I thought its power to move me was long gone and I went only as a dutiful Drama Desk voter.  I’m glad I did.  By the end, the graveside scene was so painful I was in tears.  Linda said she couldn’t cry but couldn’t not.  

     Adding to the emotion of the scene was a gospel recording that began to play quietly and was picked up by Linda singing “When We Meet Again When the Trumpets Sound.”  What a gut punch.  

     This gave a familiar classic a new take.  Clarke’s performance and Cromwell’s direction made the play a story of a husband and wife, a marriage, instead of the father/son story I had always been left with.

     Which leads me to the sons, Biff (Khris Davis) and Happy (McKinley Belcher III).  I’ve never had much sympathy for either of them except when I saw Kevin Anderson’s portrayal in the 1999 Broadway revival.  I did care about his Biff.  With these two I wanted to bash their heads together. 

     Andre De Shields portrays Ben, Willy’s older brother, who proudly tells Willy,  “William, when I walked into the jungle, I was 17.  When I walked out I was 21.  And, by God, I was rich!”  He is authoritative, almost kingly, pumped up with his own self-importance, making it easy to understand how he makes Willy feel he can’t measure up.  He’s also a bit scary when he’s the ghost of himself who plays out in Willy’s troubled mind.

     Scenic designer Anna Fleischle leaves the stage largely bare, which is effective in focusing on the drama of the play.  Furniture and window frames that are suspended from the ceiling go up and down as needed. Jen Schriever’s lighting design is dark and shadowy, in keeping with the mood.  

     This production was originally directed by Marianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell at the Young Vic Theatre in London, and subsequently at the Piccadilly Theatre in London in 2019.    This Broadway production proves that attention must still be paid to Willy Loman and Miller’s enduring play.