BWW Reviews: MOTOWN Brings Big Beat and Big Heat to Heinz Hall

Any long-time theatregoer will have horror stories of audiences that got too enthusiastic at a show with well-known music, especially jukebox musicals made up of mostly pre-existing pop tunes. I've known people to hum or outright sing along, whoop, cheer and scream like they're at a concert, or even get up and dance in the aisles. At most shows, this behavior is frowned upon by other audience members, or suppressed by ushers. However, at "Motown," the Berry Gordy bio-musical, this engaged behavior is encouraged- hell, it's part of the show. You see, audiences at "Motown" fill a triplicate role: first, the traditional audience at a play, watching the events unfold through the fourth wall; second, the (in-world) audience watching a Motown retrospective show; finally, the various real, historical audiences at performances by Motown artists, from Parisians getting to hear the first international performances by The Supremes, to a spontaneously integrated audience in the Deep South, at a Motown show interrupted by gunshots.

"Motown," with a book by company founder (and main character) Berry Gordy, Jr., is a musical clearly indebted to its predecessor, "Jersey Boys," and in some ways it's both better and worse than that unexpected musical hit. On one hand, it lacks the razor-sharp script, and the unique pseudo-documentary production style, equal parts "Laramie Project" and "Behind the Music." Where "Jersey Boys" feigns historical realism, found footage and talking heads, "Motown" presents its scenes and vignettes in a somewhat more traditionally narrative style. On the other hand, beloved though the songs of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons may be, primarily to the baby-boomer and Italian-American demographics, the songs in "The Legendary Motown Catalog" (as the ever-changing songwriting team is credited in the program) are often much better, and have remained perennially popular, almost becoming standards. Similarly, the plot of "Motown" is bigger, more grandiose and more socio-politically relevant than the tale of a few "Jersey Boys" who made it big but got their hands dirty in the process.

Like a kinder, gentler reimagining of "The Wall," the show begins with an aging, jaded Berry (played with great vitality and a fantastic voice by Julius Thomas III) sitting in his armchair at home when he should be at a giant concert- in this case, a televised all-star tribute to Motown's 25th anniversary. Gordy is unsure if he is willing to attend an event praising a company he feels has slipped out of his hands, full of famous ex-friends and ex-lovers, burnt bridges, acrimonious lawsuits and broken partnerships. He flashes back to the journey up from nothing, from struggling songwriter to independent record label chairman, to acclaimed success, and then to near-financial ruin as major labels buy out his biggest stars and songwriters, forcing him to start again with untapped talent. The play also deals with his desire to remain inspiring yet apolitical, creating music that will bring all people together, black and white. His non-confrontational attitude puts him at odds with the rise of the Civil Rights movement and the war in Vietnam, as well as driving wedges between him and his best friends, Smokey Robinson (a very funny and soulful Jesse Nager, who fans of the weirder side of Broadway will remember from the notorious "Pokémon" musical) and Marvin Gaye (Jarran Muse), and straining his relationship with protégé-turned-lover Diana Ross (Allison Semmes).

Thomas and Semmes have most of the show's dramatic heavy-lifting on their shoulders, and they embody the conflicted yet lovable characters well- although, strangely enough, none of the characters seem to age perceptibly; Smokey, Diana and Berry in their late teens have different hairstyles than in middle age, but otherwise seem almost identical. Semmes, in particular, nails the transition of Ross's personality and persona from fresh-faced and enthusiastic youngster to elegant diva supreme, and she sings beautifully, but with such a huge chunk of the show's score in her hands, she must always compete with the memory of the real Miss Ross. The legendary original leader of the Supremes was in a league all her own, with a voice neither explicitly pop, jazz, nor soul, almost "Mary Poppins sings Motown." Semmes, on the other hand, gives us the Character of Diana Ross, and not the Voice. This is a wise decision, and it never once disappointed the highly-appreciative audience, but it stood out in contrast to some of the more uncanny impersonations of minor characters, like Elijah Ahmad Lewis's shockingly accurate Stevie Wonder, or Leon Outlaw, Jr.'s showstopping cameo as the young Michael Jackson. Without ever breaking character, Outlaw gestured to calm a cheering audience down enough to hear the dialogue during a musical break in his first song. The rest of the ensemble is no slouch, either, as they play an average of five characters each, from historical figures to Motown legends, to Gordy's supportive but skeptical family. Special notice must be given to Dough Storm, Jamison Scott and Erick Buckley, who play all the white men in the show. Their quick changes in and out of wigs, costumes and "funny white man voices" were so versatile that I wasn't sure how many actors they actually were until curtain call. (Because there are very few white female characters in the show, and they appear so briefly, these roles are played by an actress of color. On press night, swing performer Jennie Harney was on in the track that plays these roles, and she elicited enormous belly laughs from her cameo as a stodgy old landlady discovering the magic of soul music.)

David Goldsmith and Dick Scanlan's assistance with Berry Gordy's script (based on his autobiography) keep the music coming, the laughs regular and the genuine moments of emotion impactful. Thankfully, they intersperse "book numbers" sung in the moment by the characters with "performance numbers" in which the musical acts are actually performing, with enough variety that neither one feels stale or shoehorned. Thankfully, Gordy doesn't come across as a blameless plaster saint in the script, as some have alleged he does in his autobiography. Here, he is a man trying his best to satisfy everyone, leading him to often satisfy no one at all. Ethan Popp's musical arrangements pop- pardon the pun- as they move from simple recreations of the Motown Sound to huge, modern Broadway arrangements in production numbers, to complete reimaginings of a few iconic songs, such as the slightly surreal montage of "War (What Is It Good For)/What's Going On" that closes Act 1. It's a testament to how well the Motown Sound has aged, survived and been assimilated that at any given time, the pit orchestra could have launched into Shaiman and Wittman's "You Can't Stop the Beat" (from "Hairspray," one of the many millennial-era musical to touch tangentially on the rise of the Motown Sound), and no one would have batted an eye.

Thanks to Charles Randolph-Wright's clever direction, scenes shift from concert hall to recording studio to bedroom to all points on the globe with cinematic flair, yet always remain rooted in the live concert experience. Performers in "live" mode ignore the fourth wall entirely, performing to the audience as if they were right there in the front row in real life. And for two and a half hours at Heinz Hall, it felt like we really were.

PS: It might not be typical to dedicate reviews, but in this case, I consider it appropriate- this one goes out to Dr. Rod Booker and everyone who ever played, sang or danced in his Stage Band and Jazz/Rock Ensemble, a touring disco- and Motown-based extravaganza of high school singers and musicians dedicated to preserving the sound of live dance music in an age when such groups, professionally, were out of fashion and DJs were more common. As a high school freshman, my tastes in music leaned almost exclusively on classic rock with a bit of punk and progressive metal, but my first assignment as one of "Doc's" new recruits was to watch the documentary "Standing in the Shadows of Motown." Under his tutelage, my classmates and I found our eyes opened to jazz, soul, disco, classic R&B and, of course, the inimitable Motown Sound. Doc moved the whole operation to a local community college my senior year when a different band director took over, and I'm proud to say he's kept most of the classic repertoire boogieing away up there. Before working with Doc, I was an actor who sang a bit. After a year in his team, I first discovered that I was a singer, too. So here's to you, Doc, and to Katie, Bronson, Izzo, Maxie, Smeags, Zach, Josie, Clay, Juliana, Sasso, Leah, Shane, and to everyone else who helped keep the magic alive and the music playing, then and now. "Ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley low enough. Ain't no river wide enough to keep me from you."