Review: THE NOTEBOOK THE MUSICAL at Belk Theater
Three Times a Lady Sparks THE NOTEBOOK The Musical
If necessity is the mother, maybe expectation is the grim reaper. Rescued from a slush pile of literary agency manuscripts, Nicholas Sparks’ THE NOTEBOOK became a #1 New York Times bestseller in 1996, the first of more than a dozen, and adapted for the big screen in 2004 – with such established and future marquee stars as James Garner, Gena Rowlands, Rachel McAdams, and Brian Gosling.
When Bekah Brunstetter adapted the novel for the stage in 2022, she was collaborating with composer/lyricist Ingrid Michaelson and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. So when this Chicago manuscript hit my desk that same year, in judging for the Steinberg Awards (given to the best play premiered outside Broadway), I could presume that Brunstetter and Michaelson were thinking that their work was small and intimate.
It had been five years since I’d seen Fun Home at Circle in the Square in New York, and three years since it had toured here in Charlotte with our own Corrigan as Middle Allison at Knight Theater. That musical and that scale seemed to be the template for The Notebook, which sports three Allies and tacks on three Noahs. The script delighted me as I mentally restaged it at Circle in the Square, where Fun Home had smitten me.
My enjoyment of the script was enhanced by my unfamiliarity with Sparks’ novel and Nick Cassavetes’ film. Call it snobbery, but I’d devoutly avoided both of them. So the simplicities of the script were actually charming, though I’ve since learned that the flavorings of the novel, grounding it specifically in the Carolinas, were neutered to “A Coastal American Town.”
Nor did I realize that the musical had time-traveled to the Vietnam War era from its original WW2 beginnings. Presumably, that allows the racial diversity of the cast to be more plausible – although the manuscript doesn’t prescribe it.
By the time The Notebook The Musical opened at Belk Theater earlier this week, all memory of Brunstetter’s book had also vanished, leaving me as I was when it first flashed onto my computer monitor: vaguely averse to what little I knew about the Sparks novel and the Hollywood film. Recognition only peeped in when we reached the scene where Allie sees Noah’s photo in a newspaper, standing proudly in front of the old house he had promised to renovate for her.
At that point, I had the advantage of not knowing how the story would end, though I did care. What do doctors know, right?
But I was still vaguely floating around mentally amid the non-specific David Zinn & Brett J. Benakis – and feeling more and more irritated that the story hadn’t touched down in the Carolinas or any other identifiable location. The triple Noahs and Allies, reminding me of Fun Home, didn’t help either.
Notwithstanding the vertical fluorescent lights shuttling up and down from the fly loft to chandelier height, or the repeated, random scurryings and mimed replays of previous scenes, The Notebook kept looking like a charming little musical trying so, so hard to balloon into Broadway-extravaganza dimensions. In reality, even our Knight Theater isn’t quite as small as the Broadway theater where it was staged. The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare was even smaller.
While the pretensions and non-specifics of The Notebook were deflating, threatening to snuff itself out, directors Michael Greif & Schele Williams worked their chief wonders with their finely selected cast. Beau Gravitte was the essence of avuncular as Older Noah, our narrator, even though his own medical tribulations were inexplicably minimized. Opposite him, Sharon Catherine Brown was a noli me tangere termagant, hard-wired to the brink of explosion – and if Gena Rowlands was half as dislikable, good for her!
As pleasant as Michaelson’s songs were, they never lifted the story. This was especially telling when the moment demanded a soaring, searing climax for Brown, but only yielded her an “I Know” duo with Gravitte.
The youthful energy and chemistry between Chloe Cheers and Kyle Mangold were nearly as powerful and volatile as their ultimate evolutions. You can see what they see in each other and why they might last: Mangold’s persistence and healthy self-image presage the crusty, battle-scarred man whose steadfastness we’ll mildly admire later. More importantly, Cheers’ caprice and spontaneity fill in the blanks to the mystery of why Old Noah still adores Old Allie.
In playing time, Ken Wulf Clark and Alysha Deslorieux draw the short straws among our protagonists as the Middles. Yet in teaming together for Allie and Noah’s epic reunion – and splashing around the stage in the iconic downpour scene that fronts the movie’s PR and DVD cover – they are undeniably gifted with the juiciest bits.
Clark even gets to receive Anne Tolpegin’s lukewarm apology for all the patrician prejudice and underhandedness of Allie’s Mother towards him. Jerome Harmann-Hardeman portrays Allie’s dad with equal hauteur and greater honesty.
Call me back when a local company decides to mount this musical at an appropriate scale. We can match the talent. No slights intended.
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