THEATER REVIEW
“Motown: The Musical”
Grade: B+
Bottom line: Get ready, ‘cause here it comes.
Who’s the most important record producer in American history?
Well, A-B-C. That’s as easy as 1-2-3.
His name was Berry Gordy Jr. His label was Motown. And in a dazzling three decades, from the ’50s to the late ’80s, he spawned a family of artists that dominated the charts and provided the soundtrack of an age.
“Motown: The Musical,” which steamrolled into the Fox Theatre on Tuesday night, is a testament to the genius of Gordy and the exhilarating sounds of Motown. It doubles as both a celebration of the “legendary Motown catalog” and a biography of its tempestuous founder, who discovered (just to name a few) Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson; squired Diana Ross; and fought a bruising battle with the all-powerful record conglomerates.
One by one, they bought off his artists, and eventually, they bought him.
Easily the finest jukebox musical since “Jersey Boys,” “Motown: The Musical” is a remarkable, crowd-pleasing entertainment that sustains a breathless sense of energy and urgency for nearly three hours.
Directed by Charles Randolph-Wright and choreographed by Patricia Wilcox and Warren Adams, “Motown” is a history-sampling epic (JFK, MLK, Vietnam) that deploys some 66 songs to frame the tale of Gordy (nicely played by Josh Tower, who is required to be onstage for most of the evening) and his ever-expanding entourage. (Endorsed and co-produced by Gordy, it’s also an obvious attempt to render a more balanced portrait of the musical impresario than we saw in his thinly disguised “Dreamgirls” counterpart, Curtis Taylor Jr.)
Where “Motown” really shines is in the powerhouse ensemble numbers and the surprise factor of Gordy’s talent search.
Turns out that the sweet-voiced kid trying to get his attention early on is Robinson (the lovely Jesse Nager). The blind boy with the pushy mother? (That’s the young Stevie Wonder, played by Leon Outlaw Jr.) The pot-smoking dreamer who just wants to teach brothers to love? (That’s Marvin Gaye, portrayed by Jarran Muse, who will eventually become Gordy’s brother-in-law.) The family that Gordy’s assistant whispers could become the biggest act of all time? The Jacksons, natch.
“Motown” renders the Ross-Gordy relationship as a glitzy romance that starts in Paris and maintains its soulful sheen, even after the physical spark is gone. Allison Semmes is a knockout as Ross.
One could quibble that “Motown” is cluttered. That there’s enough material here for a handful of musical biographies. That it omits more about Gordy than it discloses. All valid points. But for a production that counts more than 30 performers, twice as many songs and thousands of moving parts, it’s an astonishingly efficient machine — a Cadillac of a Broadway musical.
At the end of the day, Gordy was just an instrument. But the music that blew through him — “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “Stop in the Name of Love,” “What’s Going On” — is immortal.
