With a new King, musical every bit as ‘Beautiful’ as last time at Playhouse Square | Theater review

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 that has returned to Cleveland’s Playhouse Square — 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 at Playhouse Square 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 topnotch jukebox musical, 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.

When we last saw her at Playhouse Square — or, more precisely, when we did not see her nearly as much — it was during the 2016 tour of “Beautiful” and she was playing a minor role while understudying Abby Mueller’s Carole King. After more than a year on the road understudying yet another actress playing King, Bockel left the tour only to be invited back and given her long-overdue coronation as King.

And she is tremendous, appearing as fresh and energized as if this performance were her first and only. The same can be said for the featured players who surround her and the phenomenal ensemble that portrays famous recording artists performing Goffin/King and Mann/Weil songs. These performances, staged as if in concert and in the studio, are beautifully orchestrated by director Marc Bruni and choreographer Josh Prince — and given spectacular period-appropriate costuming by Alejo Vietti.

Early in the show, we get our first glimpse of the cleverness of this musical and its use of popular songs as the driving narrative device rather than an excuse for production numbers or to serve as obligatory historical markers, which is typical in jukebox musicals.

In a production number called “1650 Broadway Medley,” bits and pieces of period pop hits seamlessly meld together to not only capture the sound of the era but the high-energy environment of the studio in which it was created.

The rest of the show uses the lyrics of King’s songs to address dramatic moments in her life, such as when Goffin and King realize they are in love in the middle of an audition duet (“Some Kind of Wonderful”) and when their marriage dissolves (“It’s Too Late”).

Most moving of all is when the hopeful song “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” is first performed as part of a televised broadcast by the Shirelles and, later, down-shifts to a more intimate, self-reflective, heart-breaking rendition by Bockel’s King.

All of this is accompanied by a sizable orchestra comprised largely of wonderful local professionals under Susan Draus’ musical direction, which lends support to King’s piano-forward songs. Derek McLane’s floor-to-ceiling scenic design, complete with furniture that flies on and off with remarkable stealth, beautifully establishes a sense of time and space and facilitates lightening-quick changes from one location to another.

It’s been said the sign of a good musical is when patrons are humming the songs on the way out. “Beautiful” is the kind of show where patrons — particularly gray-haired theatergoers — are singing the soundtrack of their youth on the way in.

As good if not better than the 2016 rendition, “Beautiful” lives up to its name.

‘Beautiful: The Carole King Musical’

Continues through June 17 at Playhouse Square’s Connor Palace, 1511 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. For tickets, $10 to $100, call 216-241-6000 or visit playhousesquare.com.

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