[NEohioPAL] Review of touring "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical" at Playhouse Square

[Bob Abelman]

Returning ‘Beautiful’ tour still lives up to its title



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, American Theatre Critics Association



 In the opening moments of the national touring production of “Beautiful” – the 2014 Tony Award-winning show about the life, times and tunes of the artist Billboard magazine named the most successful and influential female songwriter of the last half-century – Sarah Bockel, as Carole King, is sitting at a grand piano.



She is performing “So Far Away” with the singer’s impeccable clarity and signature sense of yearning.  The Connor Palace Theatre is standing in for Carnegie Hall in 1971 and the Cleveland audience serving as surrogates for those lucky enough to have witnessed King’s first major concert.  Midway through her performance, Bockel’s face lights up and her eyes seem to ask “how in the world did I get here?”



The show, a top-notch jukebox musial, tells us how.  



We are offered insight into King’s Brooklyn-based upbringing courtesy of her consummate Jewish mother, Genie (Suzanne Grodner), her early songwriting career in the 1960s with collaborator/husband Gerry Goffin (Andrew Brewer), and the parallel careers of her friends and fellow hit-makers Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann (Sarah Goeke and Jacob Heimer).  The show moves on to King recording her first solo album, “Tapestry,” and ends as it began with her performing at Carnegie Hall. 



Bockel’s journey was no less arduous or interesting.   



For more of this article, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/bob_abelman/
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