Riverside Theatre brings its 2024-25 season to a close with a, well, beautiful production of “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” a biographical musical of one of last century’s great singer-songwriters, who began her career writing hit songs for other artists before becoming a beloved performer herself.
With a Tony Award-nominated book by Douglas McGrath that traces the trajectory of King’s career, the show begins and ends with her concert at Carnegie Hall, before stepping back in time to recount how she reached that pinnacle.
Sarah Bockel’s portrayal of Carole is richly nuanced, beginning with the songwriter as a 16-year-old, smart beyond her years, already submitting songs for publication while simultaneously starting college.
There she meets fellow student Gerry Goffin, a wannabe playwright who offers to write lyrics for one of her musical compositions. In short order, they’ve clicked as both collaborators and sweethearts. She gets pregnant; they get married. Bockel effectively conveys the exhilaration of career success, and then the anguish of marital betrayal.
Later, Carole has a terrific moment when she overcomes her insecurity about singing in front of an audience and, in a small L.A. club, blossoms before our eyes into the solo artist who will record “Tapestry,” one of the greatest albums of all time.
Jake Goz as Goffin has a trickier time, as we meet him as a likable college student who meets Carole, marries her when she gets “in trouble,” but then strays into infidelity and drug abuse as the couple becomes more successful.
McGrath’s script takes pains to frame Goffin’s faults as symptoms of psychological problems, but he nonetheless comes across as a lying and cheating louse (in the parlance of the time). The character does regain our sympathy when he and Carole share a conciliatory scene after her solo career takes off. Goz’s portrayal is honest and unflinching, unafraid to be the antagonist if not an outright villain of the musical.
In every production of “Beautiful” I’ve seen (this is the third), the characters of Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, and the actors who portray them, threaten to hijack the show, and Riverside’s production is no exception. They’re a young songwriting (and later romantic) team who are colleagues, competitors and eventually best friends of Carole and Gerry.
Their mutual boss, Don Kirschner, fosters the competition between the two couples to write songs for the hit-making singers of the day. Cynthia is the lyricist – smart, sophisticated, independent. Barry is the composer – comically hypochondriacal, self-effacing, a real mensch.
Sarah Ellis and Nick Moulton are both very funny in these roles, dropping mordant one-liners with razor-sharp timing as they negotiate the complexities of their professional and romantic relationships. They’re the Fred and Ethel to Carole and Gerry’s Lucy and Desi, and had the opening night audience chortling throughout.
Offering terrific support is Rachel Coloff as Genie Klein, Carole’s mother, who also earns her fair share of laughs alternately doting on her daughter and fretting about her show business aspirations. She won the opening night audience’s enthusiastic exit applause when she blasted her daughter’s two-timing husband.
And Jonas Cohen as Don Kirschner manages to remain avuncular, even as he schemes to pit the two couples against one another, prodding them to output songs that leapfrog one another up the Billboard charts.
It would be a spoiling disservice to list the hits these two couples wrote, as there is a lot of fun in the surprises to be had by those who know only Ms. King’s later recordings of her own work.
The first act includes many “They wrote that?!” moments as the couples’ successes take them higher up the music charts.
The multitalented ensemble works hard all evening long, playing everyone from minor characters in the songwriting factory to the big-name musical acts who record the songwriting couples’ work.
The doubling or tripling of roles gives everyone their moment to shine, and to show off Kurt Alger’s period wigs and costumes that trace the fashions of the early 1960s into the next decade.
One favorite ‘look’ – the Gloria Steinem-like patron at Carole’s impromptu nightclub debut, a perfect embodiment of ’70s chic.
If not all the dancers exhibit the choreographic precision we associate with the headliners they’re impersonating, director/choreographer DJ Salisbury’s work is sharp and stylish, nicely evoking the moves we remember from period television shows such as “American Bandstand” and “Hullabaloo!” His direction keeps a steady focus on the narrative and moves the proceedings along at a clip.
Riverside’s Stark Main Stage has been newly outfitted with a large turntable, and scenic designer Peter Barbieri takes full advantage of it, letting scenes and settings rotate in and out of view with the fluidity of a cinematic dissolve. As panels slide in and out from the sides or down from above, the space reconfigures seamlessly from a humble Brooklyn apartment to Manhattan offices, recording studios, Carnegie Hall’s stage, or a suburban dream house.
Because the story takes place in the world of show biz, lighting designer Yael Lubetzky has fun playing with chase lights, star-fields, and other effects that convey the glitz and flash of soundstages, TV studios and nightclubs.
In an interesting real-life sidebar, King herself was loathe to see the original Broadway production of the musical, fearful that it would elicit too many unpleasant memories. It was only when her grown daughter assured her that she would enjoy it, months into its run, that she snuck in to see it, disguised and unannounced. She loved it and revisited, eventually even joining the cast on stage for the finale.
“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” runs through May 11 at Riverside Theatre, 3250 Riverside Park Dr., Vero Beach. Tickets are available online at RiversideTheatre.com or by calling the box office at 772-231-6990.
Photos by Angel Udelhoven
