For a Certain Type of Viewer, ‘The Notebook: The Musical’ Will Hit the Right Notes

Back in 2004, a certain kind of movie fan got to swoon over “The Notebook,” director Nick Cassavetes’s sentimental but charming adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’s novel that follows a couple from nearly star-crossed young love to fragile old age. It was the tale of a rich girl and the poor boy who defied her mother’s snobbery to win her heart, and it concluded — spoiler alert — with the now elderly woman and man, respectively suffering from dementia and a bad heart, dying in each other’s arms.The movie proved a showcase for some very fine actors, and so does a new musical based on Mr. Sparks’s bestseller — which, frankly, is the best thing that can be said about the “The Notebook: The Musical.” I’ll emphasize my subjectivity here: While I’m frequently driven to tears by shows, books, and films, I recoil on a similarly visceral level from anything that seems too contrived to tug at my heartstrings or too obvious in that attempt.I don’t doubt the sincerity of Ingrid Michaelson, the accomplished singer/songwriter who wrote the music and lyrics for this “Notebook,” or playwright Bekah Brunstetter, making her Broadway debut as its librettist. What I do question, after sitting through its two acts, is their capacity for avoiding the kind of platitudes one associates more with Lifetime TV movies than musical theater — even today — and, in Ms. Michaelson’s case, sheer awkwardness.“I look in the mirror/I see an old man/But in my eyes/A young man’s face,” an old man sings in the opening scene, then adds, in case we don’t get his gist, “Time, time time time/It never was mine, mine mine mine.” This is Noah, our romantic hero, who throughout the show will read to the heroine, Allie, in hopes that his account of their love story will stir her addled memory.Joy Woods and Ryan Vasquez as ‘Middle’ Allie and Noah in ‘The Notebook: The Musical.’ Julieta CervantesWhile the screen adaptation cast four actors as the lovers — Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams played Noah and Allie as teenagers and young adults, with James Garner and Gena Rowlands portraying the senior versions — the musical uses six, so that different performers represent them in their late teens and late 20s. If this seems a tad unnecessary, it allows the younger principals to roam the stage like groups of ghosts as their older counterparts remember them or, in Allie’s case, struggle to do so.Jordan Tyson, John Cardoza, Joy Woods, and Ryan Vasquez are all winsome and supple singers as, respectively, the “Younger” and “Middle” Allie and Noah. And directors Michael Greif and Schele Williams have recruited a pair of venerable veterans, Maryann Plunkett and Dorian Harewood, to play the couple in its golden years. Yet there’s only so much these troupers, not to mention Mr. Greif and Ms. Williams, can do with the clunky dialogue and lyrics offered here.They’re not the only ones who suffer. Andréa Burns, fresh off a riveting turn in Lincoln Center Theater’s radiant “The Gardens of Anuncia,” is saddled with the role of Allie’s mother, presented here as a boilerplate snob. “I know boys like that,” she sniffs after briefly meeting Noah. “He’ll take what he wants, and then he’ll be done with you.”Younger Allie is undeterred, of course, and before long finds herself in an abandoned house with Younger Noah, watching as he takes off his shirt. “Oh my God/He’s just standing there/And oh my God/He’s got chest hair,” she sings. Oh my God, indeed.Maryann Plunkett and Dorian Harewood as ‘Older’ Allie and Noah. Julieta CervantesThere were moments, during the preview I attended, when I felt guilty for letting such unwieldiness distract me from the undeniable sadness and joy — “Sadness and Joy” is one of the song titles, by the way — informing Noah and Allie’s story. But I suspect I wasn’t alone: When a number recounting Allie’s decline opened with the line, “She left the iron in the fridge” (that song is called “Iron in the Fridge”), one person seated near me seemed to stifle a giggle, likely thinking it wasn’t appropriate.Then again, as I left the theater, I noticed several audience members wiping their eyes, and I’m sure it wasn’t because they had been laughing at the material. I have no doubt “The Notebook: The Musical” will capture some hearts, even if it left mine pretty cold.

For a Certain Type of Viewer, ‘The Notebook: The Musical’ Will Hit the Right Notes

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