“A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical” is a fun night of theater and memories for the legendary singer’s diehard fans.
But for the rest of us?
It’s a bit of a coin flip between whether to spend the night with this Diamond bio play — which runs through June 22 at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco and then plays Dec. 30-Jan. 4 at the Center for the Performing Arts in San Jose — or just stay at home and see what’s on Netflix.
Sure, there were some nice moments in this rather uneven production, such as the sing-alongs (yes, plural) of Diamond’s most famed tune, “Sweet Caroline.” Yet, there were also some cringe-worthy song-driven segments — we’re looking at you, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” — which might leave one wishing they were watching “Squid Game” instead.
Overall, “A Beautiful Noise” is not — to borrow from the “Sweet Caroline” fan chant — “so good, so good, so good,” but rather “so meh.” It fails to pass the one test that all jukebox bio musicals must face — which, of course, is whether it can rise above being something just for die-hard fans.
Related Articles
Review: Neil Diamond delivers a gem in San JoseIn that sense, it falls well short — at least artistically, if not financially — of such jukebox triumphs as “The Cher Show,” “Jersey Boys,” “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations,” “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” and “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.”
Fortunately, this touring production does have Nick Fradiani, the 2015 “American Idol” champ in the critical “Neil Then” part, which extends from the early stages of Diamond’s career in the ’60 right up into the ’90s. He’s an OK actor, who struggles a bit with convincingly portraying emotions onstage, but a terrific Diamond impersonator, delivering all those overblown songs with a voice style that is certainly up for the challenge.
The other Diamond in the production — “Neil Now” — is played competently enough by Tony-nominated actor Robert Westenberg. That’s the Neil we meet first in the play, as the emotionally troubled former chart-topper — whose battle with Parkinson’s disease has forced him to retire from touring — is in the middle of a session with his therapist (played by Lisa Reneé Pitts).
That’s the setting where Diamond’s story unfolds, in a very contrived and forced manner — even by jukebox musical standards — as the therapist uses a book of the singer-songwriter’s lyrics as a launching pad to examine significant life moments. Mostly, however, it’s just an unconvincing way to stitch together some uneven performances of Diamond’s greatest hits — which, really, leaves the entire production on shaky grounds.
Going back and forth between “Neil Now” and “Neil Then,” with both parties often sharing the stage at the same time, the crowd is transported back to the star’s early attempts to break into the business. He was lost, almost always disheartened (even after fame came calling) and somehow couldn’t even see “Neil Diamond” made for a ridiculously good showbiz name.
The first half of the play — mimicking Diamond’s own career — contains almost all of the musical highlights. We move quickly through his days penning hits for other artists — most notably, The Monkees smash “I’m a Believer” (later a big moneymaker for San Jose’s own Smash Mouth on the “Shrek” soundtrack) — into the early stages of his own performing career and such lasting hits as “Solitary Man,” “Cracklin’ Rosie” and, of course, “Sweet Caroline.”
The second half of the play also draws strongly from the music of Diamond’s early days, despite the fact that we’ve now entered into an entirely different era of his life and career in the late ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.
And perhaps that’s a good thing, since the few latter era compositions included directly corresponded to the worst moments of the show — the “let’s-get-back-to-basics” plea from Diamond’s second wife in a overly bouncy and chipper “Forever in Blue Jeans,” the pained marriage breakup framed in the most dreadful TV-soap-opera-style imaginable with “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” etc.
Yet, the music moments — both bad and good — are welcome respites from the rest of the very thinly developed storyline. There is a complete fail in the attempt to nurture and develop emotion on the stage, which some might excuse as just being intentionally reflective of Diamond’s own reluctance to come clean with himself about his troubles and concerns in therapy. What we do get, in ample amounts, is both Diamonds — “Now” and “Then” — coming across as just being so miserable. And, as the musical wore on, the feeling grew ever more contagious.
“A Beautiful Noise” does manage to, for the most part, stick the landing, with its final moments ranking among the best of the play. Then, of course, there’s another big sing-along at the end — of a song that we can both longtime fans and pretty much everyone else will know the words to — and that’s probably why most people bought tickets in the first place.
“A Beautiful Noise” runs through June 22 at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco (broadwaysf.com) and Dec. 30-Jan. 4 at the Center for the Performing Arts in San Jose (broadwaysanjose.com).
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Review: Neil Diamond musical is not ‘so good, so good, so good’ )
Also on site :