After being as roundly disappointed by the Carole King Broadway musical “Beautiful” a couple of months ago, I got invited to see it again, this time with Jessie Mueller, instead of the understudy I had been stuck with the first go round, and what a difference a performer can make.
Mueller’s star making turn as Carol King saved the somewhat flimsy show from extinction through asinie song segues and made it a fitting tribute to the great pop songwriter. Without Mueller, the Cynthia Mann and Barry Mann couple (portrayed by Anika Larsen and Jarrod Spector) steal the show. Jake Epstein as Gerry Goffin is too dark and creepy as her unfaithful husband and songwriting partner, without a very strong King to play against. Not only does your attention shift to the other couple, but Goffin’s agitated restlessness seems to come from another show. The first time round, the act where the couple go away on vacation together brings the show to a standstill. It is still a mess with Jessica involved as well, but her deeply empathic King makes sense of the fuddy cupidity of King’s actions and Goffin’s reactions.
Mueller’s a good actress, she played the Barbra Streisand role in the bizarrely gender twisted (a Victorian era woman reincarnated as a gay man) “On A Clear Day You Can See Forever”. The revival was a disaster but Mueller did everything that could be done with the role. I am so happy to have seen the understudy because it has made me appreciate Mueller’s performance even more.
Not that it entirely matters though now my position as a music writer hurts me a little because to my ears, the first time round was amateur hour. If you could get over, even enjoy, the demo versions of songs better known as wall of sound Phil Spector extravaganzas, the rest of it was terrible. This is not the Drifters, this is not the Shirelles. We are talking about world class bands who never left the stage after that run of songs.
But having a great singer, a Broadway vocalist, perform Carole helps tremendously. Jessie has a better voice than King, and she performs these songs, underperforms, underplays her hand, to perfection. Her “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” in the first act is tentative and strained and “It’s Too Late” in the second act, the blossoming of a great singer. Jessie is excellent at everything she attempts here: there is a real sense of growth as a songwriter and a person. It makes up for what amounts tojust another Jukebox Musica and will make her a huge star for a long long time.
