Musicals on Broadway: “Motown” and “Jekyll and Hyde”

Motown the Musical

Book by Berry Gordy, music and lyrics from the Motown catalog; directed by Charles Randolph-Wright

Performances began March 11, 2013

Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 West 46^th Street, New York, NY

motownthemusical.com

Jekyll and Hyde

Music by Frank Wildhorn, book and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse; directed by Jeff Calhoun

Performances began April 5, 2013

Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway, New York, NY

jekyllandhydemusical.com

The Supremes (with Velisia LeKae, center, as Diana Ross) in Motown the Musical (photo: Joan Marcus)

Berry Gordy’s is certainly a true American success story—black man from Detroit builds musical empire at a time of intense racial strife—but Motown the Musical misses a golden opportunity to give it theatrical sizzle.

Using Gordy’s rags-to-riches journey as its framework, Motown the Musical is the latest Broadway show with a pre-loaded jukebox of hit songs: that Gordy’s is richer than Abba’s, Green Day’s or ‘80s hair-metal bands doesn’t make the show a success, just marginally better.

You know you’re in for dramatic shortcuts galore at the opening battle of bands between the Four Tops and the Temptations. The rest of Motown follows suit; with its storyline sequences mere detours from the reason everyone is there: to hear recreated classics by the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, etc. If Gordy’s self-pitying story—he’s basically a well-meaning guy who becomes ruthless when he needs to play the showbiz game—isn’t absorbing onstage, blame book writer Gordy and director Charles Randolph-Wright, who err on the side of caution, falling back on their gold mine of 60—60!!—original Motown tunes, counting the negligible new ones penned by Gordy himself.

The overlong 2-hour, 40-minute musical is most entertaining when Charl Brown’s Smokey, Valisia LeKae’s Diana, Bryan Terrell Clark’s Marvin and little Raymond Luke’s Michael Jackson (he alternates with Jibreel Mawry) do their onstage best to musically approximate those superstars. But although we hear welcome bits of classics like “I Hear a Symphony,” “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “ABC,” we also hear Stevie Wonder’s crass “Happy Birthday” in honor of Martin Luther King and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” to pointlessly underline that Gordy was worked his magic during a time of tumultuous social upheaval.

At least the songs draw attention away from the platitudinous dialogue and a plot in which not one character—not even Gordy, despite Brandon Victor Dixon’s heroic effort in the lead—escapes being a stick figure. Motown would work handily as a revue, shorn of Gordy’s story.

Maroulis and Cox in Jekyll & Hyde (photo: Chris Bennion)

Frank Wildhorn’s many Broadway flops equal his many Broadway shows, but a cult audience of diehards ensures continuing returns, no matter how diminished. Last season’s failure, Bonnie & Clyde, was graced with Laura Osnes, but no such luck with the revival of his least floppy show, Jekyll & Hyde.

The problem is that, despite Wildhorn and lyricist-book writer Leslie Bricusse adapting a sure-fire property—Robert Louis Stevenson’s gothic tale of Good vs. Evil—the result is woefully pedestrian. Bricusse’s book distills the story to its banality, which also describes his lyrics (sample: “Still I pray every day/that Henry may find his way”). Wildhorn’s imitation rock music adds mind-numbing sameness to the insipid wordplay; the composer seems incapable of penning a memorable tune, and his score is amped up to the point of being a loud, disjointed mess.

For his well-paced revival, director Jeff Calhoun heavily relies on Tobin Ost’s ingenious sets and costumes and Jeff Croiter’s magisterial lighting, all of which savvily balance reality and illusion. The pacing only lags whenever another Wildhorn song is shoehorned in, which happily happens less often in the quicker paced second act.

Teal Wicks is a golden-voiced Emma, Jekyll’s fiancée; Richard White makes Emma’s respectable father sympathetic; and Laird Mackintosh does yeoman’s work as Jekyll’s faithful friend Utterson. As Lucy, the prostitute who becomes the link between Dr. Jekyll and his diabolical creation, ‘90s pop singer Deborah Cox shows off a powerhouse set of pipes, especially in the show’s most enjoyable tune, a Cabaret ripoff called “Bring On the Men.”

Constantine Maroulis, the American Idol alum playing the title characters, also has the chops to belt out Wildhorn’s noisiest songs, like the would-be hit “It Takes a Moment.” If Cox and Maroulis are too intense for such flimsy material, they give the fleeting impression that Jekyll & Hyde is more than mere musical bombast.

Motown the Musical

Book by Berry Gordy, music and lyrics from the Motown catalog; directed by Charles Randolph-Wright

Performances began March 11, 2013

Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 West 46^th Street, New York, NY

motownthemusical.com

Jekyll and Hyde

Music by Frank Wildhorn, book and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse; directed by Jeff Calhoun

Performances began April 5, 2013

Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway, New York, NY

jekyllandhydemusical.com