SEE or SKIP: Beautiful: The Carole King Musical

SEE because:
Jessie Mueller, who plays singer-songwriter King, starts out instantly lovable, and stays that way even as King grows from awkwardly shy performer to finding her voice at the piano.

“Beautiful” is a nice musical about mostly nice people (even the not-so-nice Gerry Goffin is flawed and excused by a mental condition). We don’t just root for Carole, we root for Goffin, Don Kirshner, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and Don Kirshner, too.

The good-spirited competition between the two songwriting teams is the best part of the show – which is great, because it takes up a good portion of the show.

Of course you can sing along with the songs, and even discover a couple you weren’t singing along to beforehand (e.g., “It Might as Well Rain Until September”).

For the most part, the show’s musical approach is gentle and welcoming. Mark Bruni’s direction and the Brian Ronan’s sound design aren’t trying to bludgeon you into loving the show (take that, “Aladdin”). They rightly know the story and music are there to be enjoyed, not hammered into you.

The show actually makes the radio-over-familiar “You’ve Got a Friend” quite touching.

SKIP because:
Late into act one, “Beautiful” begins to resemble the jukebox musical it undeniably is (whereas the rest of the time, the songs are there to illustrate the story). However, for a dull, 20-minute stretch, characters will write a song, sing a verse of it, and then the group that made it famous will come out and do the number in full garb and orchestrations. It starts to feel like one of those public-television “remember the 50s” reunion concerts, only with ersatz groups doing the honors.

Don Kirshner gets a lot of stage time, and in the first act, it’s interesting to see him be the good-guy supportive boss and the semi-bad-guy boss pitting artists against each other in reasonably friendly competition. He shows up a lot in the act two, too, but he’s just there and doesn’t further develop in any meaningful way.

FINAL CALL: SEE because:
There’s a reason that everybody – and I mean everybody – seems to like this show: the classic pop songs retain their appeal, we love Mueller’s King, and who doesn’t like seeing good talent, good behavior and good people rewarded?