It took twenty years for the popular 2004 tear-jerker
The Notebook, based on the Nicholas Sparks novel, to become a Broadway musical, and now the national tour is playing at the Ordway Center in St. Paul for two weeks. And on opening night, Mr. Sparks himself was there to watch his story told musically, along with producer Kevin McCollum, who used to work at the Ordway. I don't think I've ever read the book, and haven't seen the movie in at least a decade, so I went into the musical without any real attachment to the source material. I found it to be well-adapted, with a clever and effective overlapping of the three timelines in the story, exploring relevant themes of memory, time, relationships, dementia, and family, with an easy to listen to and emotionally true score by singer/songwriter Ingrid Michaelson. It's also the rare Broadway musical that's less than two a half hours long, and feels just the right length, not overstaying its welcome.
See it in lovely downtown St. Paul, already decked out for the holidays in twinkling lights, through November 30.
I missed the opening number because I was stuck in the Will Call line; apparently the Ordway's app wasn't working, sending an overwhelming number of people to Will Call to print their tickets (pro tip: if you have tickets, print them at home if you can). So I'm not entirely sure how the story began, but I gather it was in Allie's room at the dementia care facility, with Noah reading to him from the titular notebook. As Noah continues reading the story to Allie, who doesn't know who he is, or that this is her story, we see it play out in two different timelines - when they met as teenagers and fell in love fast and furiously, and their reunion ten years later after a war, distance, and their families kept them apart. The three timelines nicely overlap, with all three sets of characters sometimes appearing on stage together and interacting, or even singing in harmony. This device provides a full picture of these characters, and reminds us that we carry our younger selves around with us. The entire story provides an interesting rumination on questions like: what is time? what is memory? where do our memories reside - in our brains? in our bodies? and who are we if we don't have our memories?
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| the three versions of Noah and Allie (photo by Roger Mastroianni) |
Co-directors Michael Greif (director of
RENT and so many more hit musicals) and Schele Williams handle the multiple timelines beautifully, the story flowing smoothly from one to the other to the other, with the older Allie and Noah often sitting off to the side watching. This is not a dance heavy show, but there's some lovely movement that aids in the storytelling and gives it an ethereal quality (choreographed by Katie Spellman with associate choreographer Emily Madigan,
a #TCTheater artist in her Broadway debut). The set also smoothy and efficiently moves from time to time, location to location, with the frame of Noah's house rolling out along with a couple of porch pieces that also double as docks over the babbling brook with stones. This naturey scene is contrasted with the clinical hallways of the facility in the present. And yes, it rains. (Scenic design by David Zinn and Brett J. Banakis, lighting design by Ben Stanton.)
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| the cast of The Notebook (photo by Roger Mastroianni) |
There are three actors playing each of the two main characters, at different points in their life, and an ensemble of eight playing all the other characters. They're all wonderful, but the heart of the story is Beau Gravitte as the older Noah. This is in many ways his story; Allie spends much of the show as a spectator in her own story. But through Beau's performance, you feel that lifetime of experience, connection, and love. Sharon Catherine Brown beautifully and heart-breakingly portrays the older Allie's confusion, her moments of lucidity bringing tears. Kyle Mangold and Chloe Cheers are all innocent and youthful charm and passion, while Ken Wulf Clark and Alysha Deslorieux (whom we last saw as
Eliza in the 2023 Hamilton tour) bring a bit more world-weariness to their characters. The pairs are all well matched to each other, and each set of three actors really feels like the same character.
As with most movie adaptations I've seen, I don't know that this movie needed to be made into a musical. But as such fare goes, I think it's well done and worth watching, especially if you have some attachment to the movie.
