Review: TINA ~ THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL At ASU Gammage

Guest Contributor David Appleford returns to the pages of BroadwayWorld with this candid, illuminating and informative review of the national touring production of TINA ~ THE TINA TUNER MUSICAL. 

Generally speaking, three kinds of musical theatre qualify as being called a jukebox musical. First, there's the original story where the songs are used to further the storyline – think Mamma Mia! and the music of Abba. Second, there’s a revue of a musician's work – Movin’ Out was the music of Billy Joel interpreted through song and dance. And third, there’s the real-life story of a musician's rise to success and fame – Beautiful: The Carole King Musical is a good example.

Now playing at ASU Gammage in Tempe until October 15 is the national touring production of TINA ~ THE TINA MUSICAL, and while its jukebox style of musical theatre is the third example in the above list – a real-life story enhanced by the artist's catalog of songs – the opening night packed house in Tempe responded to the show as if it was hoping to see more of the second style - a revue of the singer's work with recreations of key musical moments and concerts as though in a live performance. 

Directed both here and in London by Phyllida Lloyd - the talent who in 2008 planted booster cables on the jukebox musical when she directed Mamma Mia! - Lloyd approaches her new show in much the same way.  The obvious difference, of course, is that while Mamma Mia! was fiction, TINA is a true tale, yet the songs for both shows are used in the same way; they punctuate a scene, often simply because the title sounds appropriate to the given situation, regardless of their true relevancy in the real-life story.

If not prepared, those who consider themselves rock ‘n roll historians may find themselves balking at how some of the songs are used and where they appear in the timeline. If that’s you, keep in mind that this is a musical, not a documentary. Even though Nutbush City Limits was released in ‘73, the song is used as the opening number for the community church gathering in 1950s Nutbush, Tennessee.  

Later, when Ike Turner’s saxophone player Raymond (Gerard M. Williams) confesses his love for Tina (Ari Groover on opening night), the song that follows is Tina's '83 version of Let’s Stay Together.  However, perhaps the most amusing use of a Tina Turner song when slotted into a sequence simply because the title sounds right occurs when the singer is alone in the UK.  There she is, standing on a damp and dreary London street feeling sorry for herself as she sings, I Can’t Stand The Rain.  

The production has a running time of a little over 2 hours 30 minutes, plus intermission, yet despite its considerable length, by the end of the show, you feel as though you still only have a surface level of knowledge regarding Tina's turbulent life. The writers – here there are three of them – have the difficult task that faces all writers when creating a narrative based upon real events: what to leave in, what to take out. TINA moves quickly from scene to scene, which helps if your low attention span is due to too much MTV and those Tina Turner videos seen over the years, but occasionally, when a scene jumps abruptly to the next moment, which it often does, you’re ultimately left with a sequence of events representing only highlights of a life rather than a deeper exploration.  It’s like watching a long trailer featuring quick, violent, disturbing excerpts that ultimately belong to a much bigger picture, one that you won’t be seeing here.

The musical is split into two distinct halves.  If you saw the ‘93 Angela Bassett movie What’s Love Got To Do With It, most of the events of that film you’ll recognize occurring in the show’s first half.  In the second, Tina and Ike (an appropriately threatening Gordia Hayes) are now forever split, but after a long spell of singing solo in small venues wherever she could get the work, career aid comes with the help from Australian record producer and writer, Roger Davies (Zachary Freier-Harrison with a suspicious sounding Aussie accent). Together, they set off the events of what will eventually become an international career so successful, it will surpass anything even Ike could have dreamed of.

In the real world, life events have an annoying habit of not quite fitting into the story as things happen.  Before the Ike and Tina Turner split came about, Tina had already recorded two solo albums, plus, in ‘75, director Ken Russell cast her as the Acid Queen in The Who’s rock opera Tommy where she practically jumped off the screen – and all without Ike.  It was a landmark moment in her career, but details like these tend to clutter the tidy order of story-telling, and in TINA, none of this is mentioned.

But where the show works and comes alive in the way a packed house is hoping is during the climactic recreation of a live performance. At curtain's rise, Tina, looking as we would later get to know her in her solo career, stands with her back to us as she readies herself to go on stage in front of a stadium packed with 180,000 fans in Brazil.  The Tempe crowd roared at the sight as if readying itself for a hard-hitting, introductory classic Tina Turner rock ‘n roller, but it doesn’t come. Instead, the setting is instantly changed to the 50s, to the gospel-singing church choir of a youthful Anna Mae Bullock (Symphony King) in Nutbush. The show will eventually circle back to that backstage moment in Brazil but it will take almost the entire show to get there.

With pulsating lights, a live band that can now be seen on stage, TINA suddenly bursts with the explosive high energy and volume of a live concert on the wide Gammage stage as the singer dives headfirst into (Simply) The Best. And it’s this overwhelming moment, along with a short mini-concert after the bows consisting of Nutbush City Limits and Proud Mary, that most are going to remember about TINA ~ THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL.  It's at that moment as you leave the theatre with the sound of Tina's music still echoing in your mind, you may find yourself wishing, why wasn't there more of that?

ASU Gammage ~ 1200 S. Forest Avenue, Tempe, AZ ~ ~ https://www.asugammage.com ~ 480-965-3434

Photo credit to Matthew Murphy for Murphy Made

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