“A Beautiful Noise” is a jukebox musical that understands the project.
The present, which opened Wednesday on the Hollywood Pantages Theatre on the Broadway musical’s North American tour, exists to rejoice the tough magic of Neil Diamond’s catalog. If superb singing of American pop gold is what you’re searching for, “A Beautiful Noise” delivers.
Diamond’s followers will little doubt really feel remunerated by the thrilling vocal efficiency of Nick Fradiani, the 2015 winner of “American Idol,” who performs the younger iteration of the double-cast Neil, the Brooklyn-born pop sensation who went on a rocket ship to fame and fortune that gave him every part on the planet however the peace that had all the time eluded him. Fradiani vocally captures not simply the driving pleasure of Diamond’s singing however the notice of masculine melancholy that provides the songs their grainy, ruminative subtext.
Hannah Jewel Kohn and Nick Fradiani play Marcia Murphey and the younger model of the double-cast Neil Diamond, respectively.
(Jeremy Daniel)
Jukebox musicals, impressed maybe by the business success of “Mamma Mia!,” are inclined to muscle an artist’s hits into flagrantly incongruous dramatic contexts. Anthony McCarten, the e book author of “A Beautiful Noise,” avoids this entice by organising a framework that deepens our appreciation of Diamond’s music by shining a biographical gentle on how the songs got here into existence.
The older model of , now the grizzled Diamond burnt out by tour life and determined to not duplicate the errors he made in his first two marriages, is performed by Robert Westenberg. He’s been despatched by his third spouse to a psychotherapist to work on himself. As he shares with the physician (Lisa Reneé Pitts), he’s been informed that he’s arduous to dwell with — an accusation that his lengthy, cussed silences within the session make immediately credible.
Introspection is as unnatural to Neil because it was for Tony Soprano, however the physician gently guides Neil previous his resistance. Intrigued by his comment that he put every part he needed to say into his music, she presents him with a quantity of his collected lyrics and asks him to speak her by way of one in every of his songs.
Nick Fradiani, from left, Robert Westenberg and Lisa Reneé Pitts as each iterations of Neil and his physician throughout an onstage remedy session.
(Jeremy Daniel)
“I Am … I Said,” which makes reference to a frog that dreamed of being a king earlier than turning into one, cuts too near the bone. That single should await a breakthrough in remedy, however he’s lured again into his previous when the Jewish boy from Flatbush talked his method into a gathering with Ellie Greenwich (Kate A. Mulligan), the famed songwriter and producer, who satisfied him to not change his identify and gave him the prospect that set him down the highway to stardom.
The manufacturing, directed by Michael Mayer and choreographed by Steven Hoggett, marks this remedy milestone by having backup singers and refrain members emerge from behind Neil’s chair. Out of darkness, musical euphoria shines by way of.
The present’s strategy is basically chronological. “I’m A Believer,” which grew to become a runaway hit for the Monkees, catapults Diamond into the massive leagues. As soon as he begins singing his personal materials, he turns into a bona fide rock star — a moody Elvis who straddles rock, nation, folks and pop with a hangdog bravura.
Neil’s first marriage to Jaye Posner (a touching Tiffany Tatreau) is an early casualty after he falls in love with Marcia Murphey (Hannah Jewel Kohn, spinning a seductive spell musically and dramatically). It’s Marcia who coaches him into enjoying the a part of entrance man. The hits come quick and livid after that, however the frenzy of tour life exacts a extreme toll.
Tiffany Tatreau as Diamond’s first spouse Jaye Posner, from middle left, Nick Fradiani and Kate A. Mulligan as singer-producer Ellie Greenwich in “A Beautiful Noise.”
(Jeremy Daniel)
After all, everybody on the Pantages is ready impatiently for “Sweet Caroline,” the anthem that by no means fails to rework right into a sing-along after the primary “bum-bum-bum.” The efficiency of this ecstatic quantity is powerfully mood-elevating.
Fradiani’s character work is most spectacular in his singing. That’s when the interior bother Neil has been evading since his Brooklyn childhood hauntingly resounds.
“America,” “A Beautiful Noise,” “Song Sung Blue,” “Love on the Rocks” and “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” songs heard numerous instances, tackle extra weight because the circumstances of their creation are revealed. The remedy will get a little bit heavy-handed within the protracted last stretch. However Westenberg, who’s a contact too emphatic early on, lends poignancy to the cathartic launch that ushers Neil into a brand new place of self-understanding.
By retaining the main target the place it needs to be — on the music — “A Beautiful Noise” thrives the place extra formidable jukebox musicals stumble. It is a present for followers. However because the son of 1 who remembers the songs from household highway journeys, regardless that I’ve none of them in my music library, I used to be grooving to the sound of a bygone America, excessive by itself limitless potentialities.
On the curtain name at Wednesday’s opening, Katie Diamond got here on stage and video-called her husband because the Pantages viewers collectively joined in an encore of “Sweet Caroline.” It wasn’t straightforward to listen to Diamond sing, but it surely hardly mattered. Fradiani had equipped that dopamine rush for greater than two hours along with his virtuoso musical portrayal.
‘The Neil Diamond Musical: A Lovely Noise’
The place: Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., L.A.
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and eight p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends July 27.
Tickets: Begin at $57. (Topic to alter.)
Contact: BroadwayInHollywood.com or Ticketmaster.com
Operating time: 2 hours, 20 minutes
At Segerstrom Heart for the Arts in Costa Mesa July 29 – August 10, 2025. For info, go to www.SCFTA.org
