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

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THE BOOK OF MORMON
Book, music, and lyrics by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, & Matt Stone
Directed by Casey Nicholaw & Trey Parker
Choreographed by Casey Nicholaw
Eugene O’Neill Theatre
230 West 49th Street
(212-239-6200), www.BookofMormonBroadway.com

By Scott Harrah

Hallelujah!  The Book of Mormon is the funniest religious spoof since Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Monty Python’s Life of Brian had both Protestants and Catholics alike outraged that Christianity had been lampooned.  However, what sets The Book of Mormon apart from the Monty Python film classics of Christian raillery is its ability to blend dark humor with peppy, clever songs, crisp dialogue, and spectacular choreography, all of which are essential elements of great American musical theater. It is not often that we see religious irreverence and profanity bred with “family-style” entertainment, and that is what makes this show such a creative watershed in Broadway history.

“South Park” funny men Trey Parker and Matt Stone, with the help of Avenue Q co-author Robert Lopez, have taken an episode of the derisive TV show that parodied Mormon founder Joseph Smith, Jr.—the “American Moses”—and the foundations of his Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and transformed the church’s teachings into an instant, feel-good American musical-comedy classic that theatergoers of all faiths will appreciate for its well-crafted humor and brilliant score.  Broadway’s The Book of Mormon doesn’t just jab the satirical needle into Mormons, but all religions that have tried to “save souls” and conquer foreign lands as “missionaries.”

Everything here is ingenious in its depiction of America as a homogenized “promised land” and a “New Jerusalem of the New World”—especially Scott Pask’s sets, showing Wal Mart and Wendy’s juxtaposed next to the sacred Mormon Tabernacle, sitting against the backdrop of the snow-capped mountains in Salt Lake City, Utah.

When the young Mormons learn from their church leader the name of which far-away land they will be spending two years as a missionary, the show’s two male leads, the handsome, goody-goody Elder Price (Andrew Rannells) and rotund, geeky misfit Elder Cunningham (Josh Gad) are both appointed to Uganda. After a bon voyage send-off by their families at the Salt Lake City International Airport, complete with a Lion King-style serenade, the two youngsters travel to the Dark Continent with much trepidation.

The villagers in the AIDS-ravaged Ugandan village have, of course, seen their share of Christian missionaries, so they are naturally skeptical about the arrival of squeaky-clean young men in suits touting Mormonism.   The Ugandans have enough to deal with, particularly a tyrant who threatens to circumcise all the village women, and they are not about to fall under the spell of more non-African outsiders trying to offer Christ’s “salvation” as a panacea for their myriad troubles.

The Ugandans belt out their disapproval to the missionaries in the hysterical showstopper “Hasa Diga Eeobawi,” which in their own language is a purportedly a lyrical slam that is one big “f*** you” to the Mormons’ beloved “Heavenly Father.”  However, just as the missionaries realize that they are not going to meet their quota of Mormon baptisms, the sweet-natured, beautiful young villager Nabulungi (the winsome, effervescent Nikki M. James) takes a shine to Elder Cunningham, much to the disapproval of the girl’s father, Mafala Hatimbi (Michael Potts).  Elder Cunningham twists the facts about Mormonism around to suit the needs of the incredulous Ugandans. The onstage chemistry between Mr. Gad, Ms. James, and Mr. Hannells is truly amazing.  Mr. Gad and Mr. Hannells are incandescent as a mismatched pair of missionary “companions,” while Ms. James has a winning mix of naïveté and spunk that consistently demands our attention whenever she is onstage.

Things do not go as planned as the plot unravels, but along the way audiences are treated to some of the most infectious songs we’ve heard on Broadway in ages, from “Baptize Me,” “Joseph Smith American Moses” and “We Are Africa” (which eviscerates do-gooder Bono, among others) to “Spooky Mormon Hell,” complete with dancing devils and Starbucks coffee cups, Adolph Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer, and O.J. Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochrane. There’s even a tap-dancing production number, featuring Mormon boys in glittery pink vests, a nod to the Mormons’ notorious condemnation of gays and lesbians.

Is it all blasphemous?  That’s debatable, as much of the narrative fairly follows, albeit in a comic way, the history of Mormons.  Their religion is based on founder Joseph Smith, Jr., believing an angel, Moroni (played with over-the-top zeal by Rory O’Malley, who also doubles in the role of Elder McKinley) appeared to him in the 1800s in Rochester, NY, and told him about a people whom God had led from Jerusalem to America 600 years before Jesus’ birth. The angel purportedly introduced Smith to a third “New Testament” to the Bible: the eponymous Book of Mormon. The show’s seamless songs and witty lyrics celebrate Mormonism while mocking it simultaneously.

Directors Casey Nicholaw (best known for choreographing the equally sacrilegious Monty Python’s Spamalot) and Trey Parker make all the action, songs, and the actors’ fluid repartee blend together into a harmonious, uproarious evening of theater that, for many, will make one an instant convert to the genius of The Book of Mormon.

Published March 31, 2011
Reviewed at press performance on March 30, 2011

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