Review: BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL at Pittsburgh CLO

The difference between a good jukebox musical (especially a biomusical) and a bad one often has less to do with the music or the direction, or even the cast, than it does with the book. It's the book that justifies the time and expense, that says we've got more to do than put on a revue, or that you'll have more fun here than at home listening to the original records. The best jukebox musicals have historically had either wildly inventive and metatheatrical scripts (Rock of Ages), been full of big human drama and turmoil (Tina), or sometimes both (Jersey Boys, which structures itself as a Scorses film). The exception to this rule is, of course, Mamma Mia. No one knows why people like Mamma Mia. If you accept the theory that a good book makes a good jukebox, then former SNL writer Douglas McGrath's libretto to Beautiful: the Carole King Musical is its enormous saving grace, pivoting the genre's conventions away from epic romance and drama towards a cozy hangout sitcom feel, in the Amy Sherman-Palladino mode... and if you don't know who that is, go watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel right now. RIGHT. NOW.

Legendary singer-songwriter Carole King (Kyra Kennedy, a veteran of the role) didn't live a life of epic highs and lows. Her story is more low-key: a shy, nerdy songwriting prodigy who became a fixture in the 1960s music scene despite feeling out of step with her own generation's social and sexual mores. Along the way from teenage pop songwriter to Carnegie Hall headliner, over the course of approximately a decade, she had an off-and-on relationship with her more outgoing and hedonistic co-writer Gerry Goffin (Dylan S. Wallach), a friendly rivalry with songwriters Cynthia Weil (Lee Harrington) and Barry Mann (Barrett Riggins), and gradually overcame her stage fright to start performing live. Plot-wise, that's about it... but the show doesn't feel dull. It's a hangout show, full of behind-the-scenes looks at the underrepresented world of studio songwriting. And yes, there are jokes, and the jokes are GREAT- particularly the ones involving their relationship with blowhard record producer Don Kirshner (J. Alex Noble). The show's biggest creative swing is the way it contrasts the low-key, folk and country inspired "demo versions" of songs by the two songwriting teams with splashier, poppier or more rocking versions performed by (recreations of) the acts that made them famous, giving us frequent breaks from the show's reality for dancing and spectacle.

Kyra Kennedy's Carole is a wonderfully three-dimensional character, and Kennedy moves smoothly between the teenage Carole of the late 1950s and the more grown-up Carole of the early 1970s. Even her accent changes, softening her pronounced New York Jewish sound into a more West Coast tone by the show's end. Kennedy, a singer-songwriter herself, sings beautifully in the warm, earthy tones Carole King pioneered, but without feeling a need to impersonate her directly. Her chemistry with Dylan S. Wallach's Gerry Goffin is a delicate thing, never feeling either overpowering nor entirely severed. Wallach plays her partner in life and work on the tightrope between "abusive cheating boyfriend" and "lost soul," giving just enough moments of genuine warmth and grace to ALMOST buy his excuse that he's a free spirit of the 1960s and not just a deadbeat dad. You can condemn him, but it's hard to outright hate him. On the other end of the office are the more overtly comedic Lee Harrington and Barrett Riggins as Cynthia and Barry. Harrington's energy is broad, brassy and comedically histrionic, the opposite of Kennedy's cozy softness, and Rigggins expertly contrasts Wallach's leading-man smoothness with Barry's neurotic, hypochondriac tendencies. The moment when we realize awkward, nerdy Barry, the epitome of the mama's boy archetype, is actually a hugely successful womanizer, is a comedic highlight.

Bringing in even more comic relief, Pittsburgh CLO legends Christine Laitta and J. Alex Noble anchor the show's more youthful energy as Carole's highly opinionated mother and her avuncular crank of a record producer, respectively. Laitta's brief appearances as mom Genie take what could be a standard yente cliche and make her warm and very funny, landing two different hold-for-applause moments on opening night. Meanwhile, Noble seems to channel Ernie Sabella's Pumbaa for his dyspeptic Kirshner, a man with no inside voice and no off switch. If this were the 1970s, I'd be begging for a Laitta and Noble workplace sitcom, shot on film with cigarette smoke everywhere.

Director/choreographer Dan Knechtges keeps the show chugging along smoothly, transitioning between eras, locations and even states of reality versus "music video" performance with nary a pause. It's a fun, upbeat night of theatre with great music- just ask the man behind me, who was singing along with most of the songs a line ahead of the performers, as though he thought he was winning some game by beating them to each famous lyric. But don't worry... he's probably not performing the night you're there.

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