{"id":362310,"date":"2024-12-04T20:53:33","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T01:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/?p=362310"},"modified":"2024-12-04T20:53:33","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T01:53:33","slug":"a-top-notch-beautiful-noise-on-tour-at-the-national-sings-neil-diamonds-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/2024\/12\/04\/a-top-notch-beautiful-noise-on-tour-at-the-national-sings-neil-diamonds-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Top-notch ‘A Beautiful Noise’ on tour at the National sings Neil Diamond’s life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSweet Caroline.\u201d I cannot hear this song without reaching out, pointing to you, and then to me, shouting out \u201cSweet Caroline, bum-bum-bum<\/em>\u2026\u201d at every ballgame, wedding, or bar. It\u2019s an anthem to many. To me, it\u2019s my namesake song. You can play this song at my funeral, and I\u2019d be happy.<\/p>\n

Years ago, I saw Neil Diamond perform at a sold-out Madison Square Garden. I\u2019ve been a fan ever since, but only Tuesday night at Broadway at the National\u2019s top-notch presentation of A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical <\/em>did I learn that he wrote \u201cSweet Caroline\u201d in a half-hour, in deep despair, in a motel room in Memphis after breaking up with his first wife. He was pressured to write three songs under a sleazy contract with Bang Records, a mobbed-up music label. He spotted the name Caroline on an old magazine cover, strummed two unexpected chords, and his future was sealed \u201cwhere it began\u2026\u201d and music history was made.<\/p>\n

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Nick Fradiani as Neil Diamond \u2013 Then (center), Robert Westenberg as Neil Diamond \u2013 Now (left), Lisa Renee\u0301 Pitts as Doctor, and The Noise ensemble in \u2018A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical.\u2019 Photo by Jeremy Daniel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The framing of A Beautiful Noise<\/em> is a therapy session between the aging and ailing Neil Diamond (a spirited Robert Westenberg) and his psychologist (Lisa Rene\u00e9 Pitts), who must pry the facts of his depression from him via his songbook and give us a full-blown life story via his lyrics and songs. Created in conjunction with Diamond, A Beautiful Noise<\/em> was launched after Parkinson\u2019s disease \u201cprematurely ended my touring career\u2026 \u2018prematurely\u2019 because my heart and soul and would tour until the day I die,\u201d as shared in the Playbill\u2019s touching \u201cLetter from Neil<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

From a lonely childhood with immigrant parents in Flatbush, Brooklyn (the inspiration for
\n\u201cAmerica\u201d), to his breakthrough moment at the famous Brill Building in Manhattan with his first song sale, \u201cI\u2019m a Believer,\u201d performed by The Monkeys, and on to being one of the most popular recording and performing artists in the world \u2014 he boasts he was the biggest box office draw in the world, ahead of Elvis \u2014 A Beautiful Noise<\/em> gives a high-flying overview of Diamond\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

But what gives this bio-musical about a chart-topping hitmaker true heart is the revelations of loneliness, depression, and despair woven throughout.<\/p>\n

With Nick Fradiani, the 2015 winner of American Idol,<\/em> as the younger Diamond, the musical gives us the life of a great performer from the vantage of his life\u2019s lowest points. Diamond\u2019s voice, described as \u201cgravel wrapped in velvet\u201d by Ellie Greenwich (played by Kate A. Mulligan, pitch-perfect, in her fast-talking New York yenta<\/em>-producer role), soars from Fradiani. His voice is big, and just gravelly and velvety enough.<\/p>\n

As the young Diamond, he is a charmer through and through. At the end of the first act, Fradiani brings down the house with the all-cast rendition of \u201cSweet Caroline\u201d (I\u2019m not sure how many times I can mention this song in one review!).<\/p>\n

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Nick Fradiani as Neil Diamond \u2013 Then (center) with The Noise and the Band in \u2018A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical.\u2019 Photo by Jeremy Daniel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is so much more \u2014 from \u201cKentucky Woman,\u201d showing us Diamond\u2019s musical grit (and Fradioni\u2019s range) to the duet of \u201cYou Don\u2019t Bring Me Flowers\u201d with his second wife, played with a scene-stealing voice and stage presence by Hannah Jewel Kohn (originally performed between Diamond and Barbra Streisand, his high school classmate), to the poignant end scene with the older Neil Diamond having a therapy breakthrough moment when he realizes that he will never perform again and he is okay with that as he shares in a faded, soulful voice, \u201cI Am\u2026I Said.\u201d It\u2019s a beautiful noise, making music together, and it keeps the wolves of loneliness and despair at bay. This reviewer would add that it brings us together in a way few things do anymore.<\/p>\n

And \u201cSweet Caroline,\u201d well, after the play officially ended, there were two encores, and one included an all-cast, all-audience sing-along to \u201cSweet Caroline,\u201d bum bum bum\u2026. <\/em><\/p>\n

A Beautiful Noise<\/em> doesn\u2019t quite end. The band, under the direction of conductor\/keyboardist James Olmstead, which had given a knock-out performance, rocking all night, played us out of the National Theatre. It\u2019s where it began.<\/p>\n