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Review: Beautiful The Carole King Musical at Easton’s State Theatre for the Arts

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I ordered tickets for several shows at The State Theatre this fall, because they will be hosting a touring production of Hairspray in April. I bought those tickets for the teenager for Christmas.

And yes, she found out when we went to see Postmodern Jukebox at the State. When she saw the advertisements for Hairspray she got excited and I couldn’t keep the secret.

I was introduced to Carole King via my mother’s records. I used to listen to Tapestry as much as I listened to George Carlin, the Beatles’ Abbey Road and some other classics that predate me.

I also fell in love with Crystal Gayle, but that was from my mother’s eight-track collection. Click. I realize eight-tracks were a necessary technological step to get to more portable versions of recorded music, but man were they awkward.

So as a young adult I bought the compact disc of Tapestry and if I didn’t already know every word on the album I certainly learned them. It’s an anthem for a woman’s early life. A guidebook for love, lust and heartache.

My friend Nan— if you’re familiar with my blog, yes, she is the blind friend— is a huge music fan and a musician herself having played much piano in her youth.

So obviously she wanted to see the show and I wanted to see the show. Neither of us knew anything about the show. And I didn’t do any research other than to buy tickets as I already knew I was a Carole King fan and that is all the motivation I needed.

Now, despite my career as a journalist, my first bachelors from what is now Moravian University is in English Language and Literature. Now although the paper says that, I took 3/4 of my classes in the theatre department because my favorite professor taught there. I also performed in high school and college theatre, and served as stage manager and box office manager because I enjoyed those overarching and connective aspects of performance.

And I always forget this fact until I step in a theatre.

This is why Nan and I are a good pair. I’m tone deaf to music. If I can tell music is bad, it’s really bad.

That said— everything about this show was astounding. I have learned since last night that this is a jukebox musical, one that probably can be compared to the Elton John Rocketman movie that also featured multiple musical numbers. In Rocketman, the musical numbers are fantastical journeys into Elton John’s head which really don’t make any rational sense. And because of Elton John’s multiple addictions, Rocketman was very dark.

By contrast, Beautiful is wholesome and uplifting.

The show highlights the struggle of Carole King’s early song writing life and the imperfections of her marriage, one that occurred when she was just a teenager. Even these difficulties are addressed with compassion and humanity.

And in every song, the audience sees how real life inspired the music.

The performers— an ensemble cast of about 20 with five of them as the main characters: Carole, her husband Gerry, their friends and coworkers Barry and Cynthia, and their boss, Donnie (who bought Carole’s first song when she was 16, in 1958)— sang and danced with such vibrancy, talent and skill that Nan said they were better than the real stars.

The Drifters. The Shirelles. Little Eva. Janelle Woods. The Righteous Brothers.

But in addition to spectacular music and a solid book, the staging was magnificent and the costumes incredible. The clothing and the hairstyles perfectly represented the eras and the changing fads but also showed the growth of the characters. We see Carole progress from dowdy clothes to stylish ones as her songs hit #1 and her trademark curls mutate into classic 1960s updos. But after her divorce, her curls return and her clothes become easygoing but chic. You can feel the weight lifted off her.

And the simple sets are also well executed. Each location has a key piece of furniture. The offices and homes are represented my period perfect couches and desks— so when a character comes on stage with that couch the vibe is set for that particular place. I love minimalist staging.

The whole performance was breathtaking and will leave me walking on clouds today.

Funniest part of the night: when an usher shined a flashlight on an obstruction on the floor so Nan could see it.

About the show on Wikipedia.

About the venue.

An Open Letter to American Society

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

I am home today battling a hand-me-down cold from my daughter. It’s not a bad one so far, but I am doing everything in my power to keep the damage to a minimum. With flu season ravaging everyone out there, I will take my little cold.

I have a part-time job in retail, a job that pays the bills and allows me the flexibility to live my life with the quasi-freedom a writer’s life should have. It is not ideal, but few things are in today’s world. It’s an overpopulated, under-resourceful place, this world, or maybe we waste too much of what we have.

I have traveled enough to understand what “first world problems” really are. I have talked to enough people from cultures more or less the opposite of mine to see how selfish many people have become.

So, today, I write a brief letter to my fellow Americans. This letter is based on things I see everyday. Too often.

  1. Please stop giving babies iPhones and junk food. If your child isn’t old enough to walk or talk, he or she does not need an icee. And I know it’s not easy to drag an infant everywhere you have to go, but believe it or not, they are fairly easily entertained. Giving your baby an electronic device to watch movies or play games while you shop prevents your child from interacting with the world. That’s how they learn. I saw a mother recently apologize for the fact that her child was mesmerized by a toothpaste box. Good for that kid! Good for that mom! Let your child see things, touch things and meet people.
  2. Get off the phone. A lot of people are busy. We get it. But perhaps that also is a sign that you are misusing your life. And it’s not just people on their lunch hour. It’s the elderly who sometimes can’t hang up the phone to go through the check-out line. It’s just rude and it dehumanizes the person helping you. My daughter recently asked me how you could receive calls at a pay phone. I told her it had a number listed on it so if you really wanted to hang out and receive a call, you could. I also reminded her that this was also the time period where you had to answer the phone to find out who it was and before answering machines and voicemail, if you weren’t home or missed the call you would never know…
  3. Stop buying useless stuff. I think the only reason people buy half the things they own is because of an impulse that starts with “this is cute.” We buy too many clothes, too many knick knacks, so many things. Why?
  4. Live within your means. Be careful with your paycheck and try to save those credit cards for emergencies. Buy the car that fits your budget, not your lust. Not everyone needs the big house. Not every family needs more than one car. Consumers in debt are the playthings of big business.
  5. Eat better. You don’t “need” pizzas and burgers and soda. You don’t need fancy sugar-laden coffee drinks. You want them. You need water (lots of it), fruits and vegetables and healthy protein. I’ll spare the full lecture, but the better you treat your body, the better it will perform for you.
  6. Stop acting spoiled. Or entitled. Or privileged. Whatever word you prefer is fine. You want the random stuff and the fancy coffee drink because you feel you deserve it. And that’s fine. But when they run out of your favorite flavor ice cream, or things don’t work out the way you want, remember everyone usually is doing their best and it’s not the end of the world.
  7. Treat each other kindly. Be gentle. The more we share patience and kindness with our families and those we interact with, the more it will spread. I see too many people get nasty to the sweetest people honestly trying to be the best at their job, and when I see truly good souls fighting tears because someone (who probably has their own demons to fight with) decided to be mean, I don’t question why teens are seeing guns as solutions.
  8. Take care of the elderly. I live in a rare neighborhood. We lost our 90-year-old neighbor last week. Several neighbors helped care for her as she became more and more of a shut-in. The children would all visit. I would always help her carry her groceries or send my daughter to help when I saw the opportunity. That woman died very loved. And my daughter learned how to be a neighbor.
  9. Let your children grow up. Let your children solve their own problems. Have their own experiences. It’s hard to let go. I know. Start small. Let them do meal planning and cook dinner. We saw a team of teenagers working on a school project in a store. They were amazed at the cost of laundry soap and a tad befuddled. Remember, parents are training children to be adults.
  10. Appreciate other cultures. The more you value other cultures, the more you learn about yourself. I think Americans are particularly bad at this.

I’m stopping my list here. I just wanted to give you something to think about.

My daughter, the American

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

I am keenly aware of my quirks as an American. I can be giddy and boisterous. I am erratic and move too quickly. My table manners can be clumsy. My American accent is thick and my language skills, though I try, a jumble of words. Luckily, I’m cute. That rescues me on occasion.

Traveling with my 12-year-old daughter in Moscow has shown me the depth of my  daughter’s Americanisms. 

Some of these things are simply “kid-isms,” I suppose.

1. She has no concept of how loud she is. Ever.

2. Even when she tries, she still stabs her food, can’t properly use a knife and often talks with her mouth full.

3. She talks to strangers even when she doesn’t speak the language. Last night she tried to tell the Russian hostess in a Turkish restaurant in English that her dress was pretty. Poor woman thought we had a problem with the restaurant’s service. We eventually relayed the compliment.

4. My daughter has never dealt with real food. Now my daughter is a duck-in-orange-sauce, fancy meal girl. Not chicken nuggets and French fries. So imagine my surprise when she didn’t have the patience to pull the meat off a real fish or slice around the fat on a healthy portion of duck. Think about that: my daughter, raised as a foodie, has never dealt with real food. Bonus- she now adores fresh juice and real croissant.

5. She does not have the patience to remain at the table for a leisurely meal. She fidgets. She asks for hugs. She tried to put her head down. 

6. She points and screams “LOOK.”

7. In fear of making a mistake, she began this trip reluctant to engage with speakers of other languages and wouldn’t repeat phrases in foreign tongues.

8. She has classic American overconfidence. In our third and final airport of the trip, in Kazan, she tells me adamantly that she can meet us at the gate because she can read her boarding pass. Never mind that we are in a foreign country where she can neither read nor speak the language. Never mind that she is so adept at reading her ticket that she can’t figure out her row and seat on the plane.

9. Space. She’s not too bad with people in her space or how much space she occupies, but man oh man is she a disaster when it comes to realizing where her backpack is in relation to others and where her suitcase rolls behind her. And how to navigate on planes and trains without being a major disruption.

10. Math. She wanted slippers. First she read the wrong tag. Thought it was 800 rubles. It was 2500. I reminded her that the ATM was out of service (really, that isn’t mom code for “I am not your personal back”) and that I had 1100 rubles. So I told her to do the math. I know she has American money with her. And we keep explaining the exchange rate. And pointing out the sign outside the bank that lists the rate for the euro and the U.S. dollar.

I tell her if she wants to calculate the price in dollars she could give me dollars and I would get her rubles. She couldn’t determine the algebraic equation to calculate the cost. I told her to use 70 rubles for ease.
She wanted to divide 70 by 100. I told her that would allow her to figure out the pennies versus rubles rate. She wanted to then multiple that by 2500. I pointed out she was making this too complicated and suggested dividing 250 by 7. 

She didn’t get it. The logic. She could do the math, but not the thinking.

11. Ten minutes into dinner last night, she tried to sneak a game of Minecraft on her iPod under the table. That resulted in confiscation of the iPod (with us as camera and potential language assistant) and a stern, “I did not fly you 6,000 miles from home to sit on a Russian street and play Minecraft.”

“It was two seconds,” the child says.

“Because I caught you,” I retort. “The iPod is for pictures and in the hotel.”