Theater Review: A Natural Woman and Not Much Else in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
5 / 10
Everything in Beautiful sounds better on Jessie Mueller. Or, for that matter, on Jake Epstein as Goffin, Jarrod Spector as Mann, and Anika Larsen as Weil. To the extent the show remains bizarrely enjoyable despite its essential hackishness, it's this central quartet of performers who make it happen. (The musical arrangements by Steve Sidwell are also good - and bonus points for hiring Dillon Kondor, King's grandson, on guitar.) Of course, there are the songs themselves, which excuse many faults. At one point we hear an actor playing Neil Sedaka sing his 1959 hit 'Oh! Carol,' supposedly written in heartbreak over King, whom he'd dated. 'It's a song, not a deposition,' King tells her worried mother. Beautiful is no deposition, god knows; there's virtually nothing true in it. But at its best, and only then, it's a song.
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