GetOut Magazine

Songs sung bland: ‘A Beautiful Noise’ lacks whimsy
By CHRIS PAGE
Get Out

Chasing the whopping success of the ABBA hit song musical “Mamma Mia!,” theater producers have been cranking out rock ’n’ roll jukebox revues like mad.

This season, Broadway has played home to pop greats Elvis Presley (“All Shook Up”), the Beach Boys (“Good Vibrations”) and Billy Joel (“Movin’ Out”), to varying financial and critical reward. Was there any doubt that Peter Hill — stuck in the Valley though the seasoned farce and revue maestro may be — would try his own hand at it?

Enter “A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Songbook,” Hill’s pastiche of hits by the American crooner/crafter of the kind of songs that immediately appear fully formed in your brain at the mention of their titles: “Song Sung Blue,” “Sweet Caroline,” “I Am, I Said.”

That the show — which uses six cast members to play anonymous serenaders in a plotless series of song sketches — is a cheesy mess is both a given and forgivable. Though the cast sports near-uniformly fine voices, they’re amplified through tiny, distorting speakers in the theater and backed by recorded tracks that sound like synthesized karaoke arrangements.

Meanwhile, as actors, they aren’t given much to chew on. Mostly, it’s one park-and-bark after another, a lot of longing looks (Diamond’s oeuvre, as “A Beautiful Noise” illustrates, consists of a lot of lyrical longing) and choreography by Noel Irick that partly cribs “Grease” when it isn’t proffering even more hackneyed moves (mirror-hands, Noel? Really?), which the actors perform with an amusingly self-aware awkwardness.

“A Beautiful Noise” also features so many moments where the cast wanders out into the audience, prompting us to sing along and clap, that the whole affair reeks of pathetic pandering, or at least a vibe screaming “cruise ship entertainment.”

No, what’s far more interesting than the show’s shortcomings of execution is pondering how Neil Diamond’s songs fit into the mold of the jukebox musical, which lives and dies by its balance of theatrical sincerity and whimsicality.

One is reminded, sitting through this show, that Diamond’s signature songs are sincerely hammy affairs (“Forever in Blue Jeans,” anyone?) that wither without Diamond’s bravado to back them. This is, after all, the man who reclaimed the sequined vest as a macho fashion option.

And don’t expect anything remotely whimsical from Diamond’s tunes.
There’s little sense of fun to be squeezed from anthems like “America” and “Cracklin’ Rose.” (Hill does use “Red, Red Wine” to launch into a slightly amusing bout of boozy bar songs.) Ultimately, “A Beautiful Noise” feels pretty joyless.

‘A Beautiful Noise’
When: 6:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 5:30 p.m. Sunday, through July 10
Where: Copperstate Dinner Theatre
at Phoenix Greyhound Park,
3801 E. Washington St.
How much: $32.95, includes dinner and
gratuity
Info:
Grade: D+