‘Motown: The Musical’: Songs highlight flimsy bio of hit factory

SUPREME LADY & THE BOSS: (l to r) Valisia LeKae as Diana Ross & Brandon Victor Dixon as Berry Gordy in ‘Motown: The Musical’. Photo: Joan Marcus

By Scott Harrah

Ain’t no mountain high enough.  Ain’t no songbook as great as Motown’s.  And, ain’t no ego bigger than Motown founder Berry Gordy’s. He attempts the impossible by writing an inept book for the Broadway adaptation of his industry, Motown: The Musical.

As a fan of classic American pop and R&B, it’s impossible to not find at least a handful of the songs by the artists Mr. Gordy discovered and signed to his Detroit hit factory enjoyable in this colorful, loud, funky, nostalgic but horribly misguided jukebox musical. From Diana Ross and the Supremes to Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, to Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Mary Wilson, the Temptations and the Jackson 5 and beyond, Motown wasn’t merely a record label. It was a movement, and a distinct sound that defined an era and two generations.

Mega producers like Jay-Z, P. Diddy, and L.A. Reid and Babyface would never have existed, and across the Atlantic, neither would Benny and Bjorn and ABBA and the U.K.’s 1980s version of Motown: Stock, Aitken and Waterman. The entire English-language music world of today owes it all to Berry Gordy and the icons he gave us.  Mr. Gordy and Motown created the template for how to take an artist into the studio, orchestrate everything musically down to a science, full of hooks, with carefully crafted lyrics, and crank out seamless pop with soul.  The story of Motown is too epic to be told on Broadway, particularly with a flimsy, unfocused book by Mr. Gordy himself.

Nearly all of the artists from the Motown era have a solid enough songbook to merit individual jukebox musicals.  The story of Diana Ross and the Supremes was already told on Broadway three decades ago, albeit thinly disguised, in Dreamgirls. There are so many individual stories going on in Motown: The Musical, from Smokey Robinson to Marvin Gaye to the Jackson 5, and that is also its main problem. In fact, there are so many snippets of classic songs here that the Playbill lists them alphabetically instead of chronological order.

The music, in act one, comes at us so fast that we wish this would have been like Smokey Joe’s Café, with all the songs done as a musical revue tribute to Motown. While it’s a thrill to see renditions of hits from the Temptations and Martha and the Vandellas, it’s frustrating to see all these great songs in odd juxtaposition with Mr. Gordy’s awkward storyline and hokey, preachy dialogue.  Anyone familiar with Motown already knows the story of how Mr. Gordy had to sell records and have artists played on white-owned, racist radio stations. It’s history. Ultimately, America changed and embraced the Motown artists for the legends they became, and in the end, it was all about the wonderful music and the talent, not politics or race.

At one point in act one, Diana Ross and the Supremes travel to Britain to perform and rehearse material for a future appearance on “Hullabaloo,” and we see scenic designer David Korins’ wonderfully cheesy sets reflecting the go-go 1960s.  As a fan of this music, I wished I’d see the Supremes sing “Love Child” on British TV’s “Ready, Steady, Go!” and perhaps Smokey Robinson belting out “Tears of a Clown” on Carnaby Street in London (in some funky, psychedelic outfit) before flying back to America to do “Hullaballo,” but instead Mr. Gordy adds a silly scene involving himself and Diana in Paris.  Here, Mr. Gordy had an opportunity to really tell his story. Why? Anyone who grew up in the 1980s listening to British pop knows all the good stuff was just a retooled version of Motown, sold back to us by U.K. groups on MTV. Part of the power of Motown was how it influenced not only American music but also the entire world, particularly Great Britain and Europe, for decades.

The story of how Mr. Gordy pushed Florence Ballard out of the Supremes to make room for Diana Ross is here, but again we already saw this in Dreamgirls. The details of his relationship with Miss Ross are common knowledge and rather dull 40 years later.

There are some fine nods to the political climate in the 1960s that were beautifully told by Motown, such as Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong’s “War,” but for some reason we go there without first seeing Little Stevie Wonder do “Fingertips.” Chronologically, nothing makes sense here, and “director” Charles Randolph-Wright can’t do anything with Mr. Gordy’s overstuffed, scattershot narrative.

Act two starts out with promise, featuring the Jackson 5 and little Michael Jackson doing all their early hits, from “The Love You Save” to “I’ll Be There.”  However, there is so much filler that follows, from Diana Ross losing the Oscar for Lady Sings the Blues to unnecessary babble by older Smokey and Stevie.  By this point, Mr. Gordy’s book is all over the place. We’re seeing Rick James, Teena Marie, the tale of how Motown moved from Detroit to Los Angeles, and it is unclear whether the setting is the 1970s or 1980s. What could have been an entertaining evening, if the show were simply a tribute to Motown, just becomes a confusing mess. The arc of the story would be better told through performances by the Motown stars throughout the decades.

There are some nice performances here, from Valisia LeKae as Diana Ross to Charl Brown, who (both in looks and sound) is a dead ringer for Smokey Robinson. Brandon Victor Dixon, however, is totally unbelievable as Berry Gordy, and his performance is even more frustrating since he’s written as a man without flaws.  Mr. Gordy was a groundbreaking figure in American music history and launched the careers of many and inspired the world, but he was certainly no saint. What could have been a glorious celebration of Motown music instead becomes an inane bio-musical about the travails of Berry Gordy and Diana Ross, with songs interspersed throughout, performed without context or the reverence they deserve.

‘GIRL GROUP’ LEGENDS: (l to r) Sydney Morton (Florence Ballard), Valisia LeKae (Diana Ross), Ariana DeBose (Mary Wilson) as The Supremes & Brandon Victor Dixon (Berry Gordy) in ‘Motown: The Musical’. Photo: Joan Marcus

THE TEMPTATIONS: (l to r) Jesse Nager; Donald Webber, Jr.; Julius Thomas III; Ephraim M. Sykes; & Jawan W. Jackson in ‘Motown: The Musical’. Photo: Joan Marcus

THE JACKSON 5: Raymond Luke, Jr. (center) as Michael Jackson with his legendary brothers in ‘Motown: The Musical.’ Photo: Joan Marcus

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published April 18, 2013
Reviewed at press performance on April 17, 2013