Musical reminds that life’s ups and downs can create something ‘Beautiful’
We all want to be like Carole King, whether we know it or not. Don’t believe me? Just watch the winning production of the musical “Beautiful” at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts this weekend. It’s specifically the story of King’s life, yet it is beautifully universal.
The mood that permeates the show is sunny. When life hands King lemons, she serves up lemonade. With talent, hard work and a positive outlook, she shows that a “normal person” can make their dreams come true. When she’s thrown a devastating curve ball, she reinvents herself and finds even greater happiness and success than before. Would that we all could go through life with such grace.
This all could be unbearably saccharine but somehow in the hands of writer Douglas McGrath, it rings true. Or at least true enough to remind us this is how we wish life worked.
The show, which ran nearly six years on Broadway, opens with teenage Carole trying to sell a song she has written. She has success and soon meets Gerry Goffin, who quickly becomes her writing and romantic partner.
Although she and Gerry rack up hit after hit, in a friendly competition with fellow songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, their personal life isn’t as successful.
The parade of beloved hits, snazzily performed by the ensemble in multiple roles, is as much an attraction as the story: “One Fine Day,” Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “The Locomotion,” “You’ve Got a Friend.”
As Carole, Sara Sheperd has an endearingly plucky spirit, an expressive face and the pipes to do justice to songs like “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”
Adam Dietlein shows the tormented soul of Gerry without making him a monster or a caricature. As Carole’s mother, Rachel Coloff provides solid comic support, Ryan Farnsworth has fun with Barry’s hypochondria, and Sara King puts zing in Cynthia’s independent streak.
The Weil-Mann songs also provide blasts of energy — especially a rocking “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” performed by Farnsworth, and a supersonic “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” delivered by Paul Scanlan and Nick Moulton.
But in the end, it’s the radiant smile on Sheperd’s face as she performs King’s “Beautiful” that will have you leaving the theater with a true song in your heart.
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