Julieta Cervantes
To say The Pocket book had a loyal, built-in viewers earlier than it sang a lot as a notice on Broadway could be an understatement this romantic tear-jerker by no means makes an attempt.
Primarily based on Nicholas Sparks’ 1996 bestseller a few younger – then older, then a lot older – couple who survive a lifetime of tribulations (till they don’t), the musical opening tonight on the Schoenfeld Theatre is the theatrical equal of muzak, comforting in its unapologetically manipulative approach and unabashed in its disregard for something approaching the grit of the true world. (The 2004 movie adaptation, if it’s identified for a lot in the present day in addition to nostalgia, is remembered for the early casting of Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams.)
The reference to muzak, by the best way, isn’t meant to recommend that composer Ingrid Michaelson appears again fairly that far for her musical inspirations. She has a beautiful approach with a melody, even when so lots of the songs in Pocket book are samey mid-tempo ballads sung on to the the viewers as if something much less apparent may danger one or two people within the balcony lacking some the purpose: Ally and Noah love one another. Actually, actually love one another.
Of all of the present’s disappointments planted like so many wild flowers prepared for plucking, none stings fairly a lot as Michaelson’s rating. Not that it’s unhealthy – it isn’t, removed from it – however in additional than 2 hours of music you’d be hard-pressed to seek out two minutes and 17 seconds as melodically beautiful or as lyrically intelligent because the singer-songwriter’s charming 2007 indie pop hit “The Means I Am,” with its candy pledge of younger love “I’ll purchase you Rogaine/if you begin shedding all of your/sew on patches/to all you tear.” An early duet between the Youthful Ally and Youthful Noah – “Carry You House” – comes shut, although, due to its lighthearted spirit.
The vanity of the e-book, film and now musical is that the couple Ally and Noah are depicted at three essential moments of their lengthy, fortysomething years more-or-less collectively. We meet the couple in youth, after which in a nursing house the place Noah reads pages of a pocket book detailing their life story, hoping towards hope that the story will rekindle recollections that Ally’s Alzheimer’s has all however erased. (The aged variations are performed by Maryann Plunkett and Dorian Harewood, very almost well worth the value of admission all on their very own).
At the very least on this newest adaptation – which had a profitable 2022 run in Chicago – e-book author Bekah Brunstetter (who trafficked in the identical audience-pleasing sentimentality as author and producer on NBC’s This Is Us) wastes no time hiding the truth that the outdated man and the outdated girl are later-gen variations of the youthful variations sharing the stage. Anybody nonetheless confused by the idea could be properly suggested to concentrate to Katie Spelman’s choreography, with its simultaneous gestures for every technology. When, early on, the outdated man touches his neck, so do Center man and Youthful man. Not precisely delicate, nevertheless it does the trick.
The couple first meets as youngsters in a mid-Atlantic coastal city the place the moneyed Ally (Jordan Tyson) falls arduous (and vice versa) for working-class townie Noah (John Cardoza). Regardless of the snooty pooh-poohing of Ally’s dad and mom (Andrea Burns, Charles Wallace), the children whereas away a number of carefree and starry-eyed weeks earlier than the outdated people lower the household trip quick and whisk besotted daughter from whence she got here.
The motion picks up about 10 years after {the summertime} separation (although the time durations swirl round abnd by means of each other in efficiency, with all three generations ceaselessly sharing the stage). Noah spent the primary couple of years away at struggle – Brunstetter has time-jumped the battle from World Struggle II within the e-book and film to Vietnam for the stage, maybe to keep away from any overly musty interval particulars. Neither Paloma Younger’s costume design nor the co-direction of Michael Greif and Schele Williams make undue (or any, actually) fuss over decade signifiers – no groovy ’60s garb or ’70s lapels in sight. Timelessness appears to be the purpose, nevertheless it’s additionally type of joyless drag.
By the point we get to Act II, the Middles get the main target, and whereas Ryan Vasquez and Pleasure Woods are in fantastic, sturdy voice, they will do little to up the drama rigidity: Brunstetter’s reluctance to play gotcha ready video games, so welcome early on, backfire once we’re out of the blue anticipated to entertain the notion that Ally’s barely seen fiance might truly hold any of us away from our date with the nursing house. The Middles’ will-they-or-won’t-they is made all of the extra tedious by a foolish, multi-year effort by mommy dearest hold the lovers aside, a duplicitous ploy involving hidden lover letters that will embarrass any stuffy outdated cleaning soap opera matriarch.
Maryann Plunkett, Pleasure Woods, Jordan Tyson
Julieta Cervantes
Performed out totally on a nursing house set by David Zinn and Brett J. Banakis that manages to be each engaging and suitably off-putting (Noah’s renovated antibellum farmhouse hits nostalgic notes with out summoning unwelcome ghosts), The Pocket book will get to its remaining pages – or very almost so – with out letting its manipulations change into too overbearing (extra about that “almost so” in a second), but it by no means approaches the finer works of almost everybody concerned (director Greif gave us Subsequent To Regular and Pricey Evan Hansen). The fantastic Plunkett nails the confusion and panic of dementia from the get-go, which means she has little place to go. Woods, as Center Ally, breaks by means of the musical sameness with the manufacturing’s unequivocal showstopper (“My Days”), although her musical theater brassiness appears to haven’t any counterpart in both the character’s youthful and older variations.
Pleasure Woods, Ryan Vasquez
Julieta Cervantes
Nonetheless, no matter its shortcomings, The Pocket book goes full-cringe solely in its remaining moments, when, in fast succession, a near-miracle is adopted by a shared parting so well-timed an atomic clock could be envious. Older Noah has been telling us repeatedly that Older Ally will hold her promise to “return” to him if he simply retains studying that journal, a hope that may sound acquainted to each household unfortunate sufficient to have dementia visited upon them. Households who’ve realized the arduous approach that Alzheimer’s doesn’t play miracle video games have each proper to take offense at this baloney.
Title: The NotebookVenue: Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld TheatreDirector: Michael Greif and Schele WilliamsBook: Bekah BrunstetterMusic And Lyrics: Ingrid MichaelsonCast: Jordan Tyson, Pleasure Woods, Maryann Plunkett, John Cardoza, Ryan Vasquez, Dorian Harewood, with Andréa Burns, Yassmin Alers, Alex Benoit, Chase Del Rey, Hillary Fisher, Jerome Harmann-Hardeman, Dorcas Leung, Completely happy McPartlin, Juliette Ojeda, Kim Onah, Carson Stewart, Charles E. Wallace and Charlie Webb.Operating time: 2 hr 10 min (together with intermission)