The jukebox musical is often compromised before the audience steps foot inside the theatre. Producers who are more interested in preserving and promoting the artist’s work tend to avoid any hint of ambivalence or counterargument; they want the clean, uplifting version of a life that augments rather than complicates their reputation. This is a killer for the dramatist, who needs some grit and complexity, something interesting to say, to fashion a compelling narrative.
Most jukebox musicals simply give up, assume their audiences are here for the hits they already know and love, and shovel on the hagiography with as much energy as they can muster. If the result is like a particularly well resourced tribute act, at least the fans are kept happy.
A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical tries something a little more ambitious and considered, without quite avoiding these traps and evasions. It opens in a surprisingly dour mood, as 85-year-old Diamond (Terence Crawford, soulful and sardonic) mopes to a therapist (Monica Sayers) about “the clouds” that gather over his thoughts, making him irascible and difficult with loved ones. When the doctor pulls out a book of his complete lyrics and suggests they mine the material for insight, the songs literally pour out in the form of a chorus, who emerge neatly from the back of his armchair. It’s a sweetly daggy but moving moment, a gentle amalgam of forms that suggests Diamond’s songs might just fit the contours of musical theatre nicely.
The therapist might have made a satisfying if brief framing device, but book writer Anthony McCarten builds the entire show around it. Diamond and the doctor haunt the edges of each scene, commenting pointlessly from the side, occasionally stopping the action to re-establish all the moping. In the second act, things get worse: the show begins to feel like an actual therapy session. McCarten mistakes self-indulgence for self-reflection, and hopes some poorly placed flakes of exposition will substitute for emotional honesty. They don’t.
Thankfully, there is a young Diamond, played with such swagger, charm and expansive showmanship by Will Swenson – the actor who originated the part on Broadway – that all flaws in the material sluice away every time he starts to sing. From the easy sensuality of Cherry, Cherry to the lip-curling contempt of Solitary Man, Swenson’s voice ranges so effortlessly over Diamond’s songs that it’s easy to forget it isn’t the rock legend himself singing them. Diamond’s timbre and inflection are precisely and confidently realised, but Swenson’s own warmth of tone comes through too. It feels less like mimicry and more like genuine musical collaboration.
There is an undeniable solipsism at work in A Beautiful Noise, so that most of the other characters feel superfluous or ornamental. Diamond’s first wife Jaye (Alana Tranter) is depicted as a dowdy housewife, easily dispatched. Second wife Marcia (Ashleigh Rubenach, excellent) fares better, but is largely left holding a long-distance phone in her hand and pleading for her husband’s return. Music producer Ellie Greenwich (Hannah Fredericksen) and club owner Fred Weintraub (Tim Wright) are there to throw out affirmations and encouragement.
Many of Diamond’s songs are used cleverly, the inherent drama in the material repurposed as emotional crises or turning points. Play Me makes for a lush, swooning love song for Marcia and Diamond, while You Don’t Send Me Flowers works well as their break-up song. Crowd favourites like Sweet Caroline and Holly Holy are rousing conclusions to each act, and the glorious I Am … I Said becomes a moment of catharsis for the contemporary Diamond (although surely Morningside, which is about loneliness, ageing and the legacy of children and art, would have made more thematic sense).
The director, Michael Mayer, injects huge amounts of energy and verve into proceedings, even if he leans on familiar tropes and frayed dramatic beats to further the narrative – surely we don’t need another sequence in a recording studio as the unknown rookie blows them away. David Rockwell’s scenic design is unfussy and effective, and Kevin Adams’ lighting is fleshy and flash. Emilio Sosa’s costumes have an ecclesiastic fervour in Diamond’s most gospel-inspired songs, and neatly evoke the era. Stephen Hoggett’s choreography is hammy, although the cast throw themselves enthusiastically into it.
A Beautiful Noise doesn’t bring much innovation to the jukebox musical, and it never manages to avoid the creep of hagiography that haunts all these shows – but it has a heroically charismatic and convincing lead performance, an abundance of rich, memorable songs, and energy to burn. Audiences will be reaching out to touch this, in all its cheesy, maximalist, rhinestone-encrusted glory.
A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical is on at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre, until October, then Lyric Theatre Sydney from November.
