THE NOTEBOOK – THE MUSICAL Pulls All the Right Romantic Heartstrings
Inspired by the popular movie based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook – the musical, tells a decades-spanning romance that starts in the 1960s, blossoms in the 1970s, and continues, with fading beauty, in current time. An engaging and charismatic cast, a resonant plot filled with emotional highs and lows, and catchy songs with pop melodies and pleasant harmonies ensure a crowd-pleasing, cathartic good time. If you’re at all sentimental (like this reviewer), you may want to bring a tissue or two, but you will likely leave the theater with a smile and a warm heart.
The show opens with an older gentleman visiting a woman suffering from dementia, to read her a love story he thinks she’ll enjoy. Noah and Allie first meet as teenagers when she and her parents come to spend the summer in the coastal town where Noah lives. Allie’s parents have big plans for their daughter, including college and a proper husband, and the earnest, working-class Noah does not fit those plans, so her parents cut their vacation short, ending the romance. That is, until Allie sees an article about a house Noah’s restored and decides she wants to see it, and him, a week before her planned wedding to Lon. They reconnect and sparks fly, but have age and infirmity now taken Allie away from Noah forever, or can they find each other one last time?
The musical uses the opening song “Time” to set the framework for a story filled with longing and a sense of loss, but not sadness. Three sets of performers portray Noah and Allie in their younger, middle, and older years, and fluid choreography intertwines memories as the story transitions from scene to scene. Beau Gravitte, as Older Noah, brings the audience into the story from his perspective – one filled with affection and desperation as he tries to reach Allie. But it is Allie, including Older Allie, played with sensitivity and excellent expression of dementia by Sharon Catherine Brown, who is the heart of the story. Kyle Mangold, as Younger Noah, is all youthful exuberance, unaffected charm, and sincerity, and he connects with both Chloë Cheers, who played Younger Allie through most of the first Act on press night, and McKena Jackson, who replaced Cheers just before the end of the Act. Though the specifics of the substitution were not detailed, both performers give the Younger Allie a vibrant personality, naturally curious intelligence, and bright, pleasant vocals that complement Mangold.
Middle Noah Ken Wulf Clark and Middle Allie Alysha Deslorieux are expertly matched vocally, physically, and in the embodiment of their characters. The two are convincingly surprised by the realization that each truly loves the other. One of the more satisfying plot points of the musical is the more realistic persistence of Noah and Allie’s feelings for each other. Instead of coming across as potentially obsessive, Noah keeps to himself, and it’s Allie who feels compelled to show up on his doorstep. And though the audience is spared Allie and Lon’s breakup, we do get the satisfaction of Allie’s mother (a well-measured Anne Tolpegin) giving Allie all the letters Noah sent that were intercepted.
There are several songs that stand out in addition to the opening number, “Dance With Me,” featuring Younger Noah and Fin (Caleb Mathura) and Georgie (Grace Ohwensadeyo Rundberg), is a jangly, inviting flirtation. “Carry You Home” and “Sadness and Joy,” duets between Mangold and Cheers, hint at the depth of their feelings despite their youth. “Kiss” is a full-on love song that gives promise to Allie’s yearnings in “I Wanna Go Back” and “If This Is Love.” In the second act, “Iron in the Fridge” sneaks up and hits the audience with the reality of Allie’s decline. “My Days” features Deslorieux’s soaring voice as Middle Allie weighs her desires against her plans and “I Know” provides the comforting resolution the audience has been on the edge of their seat hoping for, even if the moment is fleeting and bittersweet.
Like the movie, The Notebook – the musical, with music and lyrics by Ingrid Michaelson and book by Bekah Brunstetter, stretches credibility in service of nostalgia, memory, and a sepia-toned happy ending, and Middle Noah didn’t need to lift Middle Allie quite so many times for audiences to get the reference. Nonetheless, the touring production at the Fabulous Fox Theatre conveys a hopeful tone and resilient belief in the love story that works on multiple levels. The entertaining musical is likely to elicit a few tears, a little laughter, and many contented sighs from fans of the book or movie and anyone who appreciates an evocative, emotionally resonant story of lasting love, artfully told.
