Gordy rolling with punches over musical
Motown: The Musical: Opens Friday. Through Sept. 28. $65-$210. Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St., S.F. (888) 7461799. www.shnsf.com.
Before he wrote songs and founded Motown Records, Berry Gordy Jr. was a boxer. That was in the late ’40s, when he was a teen in Detroit.
At 83, he’s still got the moves. He can take a jab, he can feint, thrust and punch. Verbally, at least.
The subject is “Motown: The Musical,” which he created and took to Broadway in April 2013, and whose touring company is headed to San Francisco. Near the end of a cordial interview, reviews come up. Almost universally, the musical’s story has been panned, while the music has been praised.
“The musical numbers set the theater on fire,” Time Out said. The New York Times called it “dramatically slapdash but musically vibrant.” Variety also gave it a seesaw review, saying the story lacked “shape, depth, thematic point or dramatic continuity” but that audiences would be pleased, as “this jubilant jukebox musical comes loaded with great singers, tons of energy, and dozens of classic Motown roof-raisers.”
“I’m never happy with mixed reviews,” Gordy said by phone from Los Angeles. “What makes me happy is the response from people who pay the money. They leave the show happy.”
He accepts reviews as “part of the game. I used to teach the artists about reviews. First, I’d look at it and see if it could help you. A lot of them are right.” Shortly after opening night, he addressed his cast. “I said, ‘Lookit. You were phenomenal. And now you know what it’s like to be Berry Gordy!’ ”
Friends’ support
Gordy said he was moved to write his play not because of other works that have referenced Motown but at the encouragement of friends such as David Geffen, who backed “Dreamgirls,” the 1981 musical based on the Supremes and other R&B acts.
“It was very good, but it was a little closer to me than I was comfortable with,” he said. “David told me, if I don’t do my own story, people are going to keep doing stories that are not true.”
The fact that Gordy was a first-time playwright didn’t faze producer Kevin McCollum.
“I’ve done many musicals with first-time writers,” he said. “I wasn’t afraid of that, and Berry wasn’t.”
Director Charles Randolph-Wright said script consultants taught Gordy the form of a musical — “where a song goes … and does it take you forward or backward.”
Of all the show’s songs, the one that has stood out — and not in a good way — is the Supremes’ hit “I Hear a Symphony,” sung by the Diana Ross character to punctuate a love scene with Gordy. The New York Times called it “a parody of a Viagra commercial.”
Randolph-White has a different view: “Audiences scream. It‘s one of the biggest responses in the show. It makes him vulnerable, and it actually happened.”
Leaving the LuntFontanne Theatre on opening night, Ross said, “He told a lot of secrets. That bedroom scene: I wouldn’t have told that.”
But, as RandolphWhite noted, Gordy wanted to tell the truth.
“He wanted to make sure the Funk Brothers (Motown’s house band) are in there by name, to honor their legacy, and he included people he had conflict with, because without the conflicts, we wouldn’t have this great group of artists coming together.”
“Everything that’s on that stage happened that way,” McCollum said.
Really? In the musical, Gordy sings, opening with “Money,” the hit he co-composed that was recorded by Barrett Strong. Gordy was never known to sing. But McCollum said Gordy was a singer — “until he heard Smokey (Robinson).”
Gordy agreed. “I was a great singer,” he said. “Except in my voice. I can sing. The Contours’ ‘Do You Love Me’ — they sang it the way I did it on my demo.” But he was content to run the label. “I’m a teacher more than anything else,” he said. “I feel proudest of giving these people a path.”
Some music journalists have taken the show to task for skimming over major players. Gordy, who based his play on his memoir “To Be Loved,” spoke with several of his stars, including Robinson, while writing the script. His biggest challenge, he said, was “to tell so much in such a short time — and keeping it honest and entertaining.”
‘Berry’s version’
Randolph-White said Ross, Robinson, Stevie Wonder and former Supreme Mary Wilson attended opening night: “Mary said, ‘We all have a version of Motown, and we’ve all written our books.’ … But this is Berry’s version.”
The national tour, which began in Chicago, features performers who were understudies on Broadway. “Diana,” “Smokey” and “Marvin” are among them, Randolph-White said.
“They had the opportunity to be around Mr. Gordy and to be themselves, to evolve into their characters rather than try to imitate the artists.”
As even the most critical reviewers have said, it’s the music that matters. A slogan for the show, “Live It Again,” Randolph-White says, is “what the audience feels when they take this journey. It’s their memory.”
Gordy also is reliving what he called “the incredible times we had — and some of the not-soincredible times.” “Motown: The Musical” begins on the eve of a TV special celebrating the label’s 25th anniversary — the show that would be stolen by Michael Jackson’s moonwalk. Gordy had mixed emotions, as many artists had left and he’d struggled to keep Motown alive. “We had to fight,” he said. “This play depicts how I felt and how I grew.”
“It’s amazing how he navigated and fought to keep his company,” McCollum said. “He survived, thrived, and lived to tell about it.”
Just like a prizefighter.