Is Top 40 music still inescapable any more? Even after I stopped listening to the stations that carried it, it seemed to be everywhere, mall shops, supermarkets, pouring out of cars at stoplights. Maybe it was easier then because lyrics were easier to hear. No matter the reason, it's something to think about as one of the reasons for the success of "Beautiful – The Carole King Musical". King's work, because she started writing hit songs so young,has become the sound track for several generations, whether they heard it on the radio or in the environment. All those folks seem to respond to this show.
The Tony- and Grammy-award-winning show opened Tuesday night at the Fox – it's a Fox Associates production, one of the reasons we get the road company in its initial tour. And it is, in a word, smashing. I saw it on Broadway a year ago – interestingly, I don't recall a show so many local critics saw in New York – and found it just as good in this rendition as in the original, perhaps in one respect, better. Unlike many of the jukebox musicals, a useful if inelegant phrase, there's a decent story line, King's bio, which is relatively accurate. The music is delicious, including songs that are of the era but not written by her. There is, happily, a real pit band and the Fox sound system is right on target.
It's the performers that are the key to this show, though. King's played by Abby Mueller, whose sister Jessie won the Tony for the role; she does the family and the musical proud, clearly having a good time with the challenging role. Liam Tobin, with a fine voice. is Gerry Goffin, the lyricist that King marries and partners with during the first part of the show, being hero and heel at various points. (His understudy, Andrew Brewer steps in March 1, through the end of the run March 6.) The other composing couple, Cynthia Will and Barry Mann, are played by Becky Gulsvig and Ben Fankhauser, and they're a rip. They seem to fit into things better than what I saw in New York, bouncing off each other and King/Mueller and Tobin/Goffin with style and wit. Record producer Don Kirshner is a role that it'd be easy to just phone in, but Curt Bouril is a real presence in it. Even Carol's mother, Suzanne Grodner (shameless plug here: A St. Louis Theatre Critics Circle nominee as outstanding actress in a comedy for her work in Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike) is a work of art.
Director Marc Bruni's direction molds the music and the musicians, both vocal and instrumental in a great fashion. Hearing is one of the most evocative of the senses, and if "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" evokes the Shirelles' recording pouring out of a radio in a car parked late at night on a rural road – well, then, so much the better.
Beautiful – The Carole King Musical
through March 6, 2016
Fox Theatre
527 N. Grand Blvd.