Sweet Caroline, the Neil Diamond musical ‘A Beautiful Noise’ at Mirvish is so not good (not good, not good)

I’ve just staggered out of “A Beautiful Noise,” his lethargic jukebox musical now running at Mirvish’s Princess of Wales Theatre, and I’m concerned about that man’s well-being. 

Because if we are to believe writer Anthony McCarten’s show, then the “Sweet Caroline” superstar has become a gloomy and petulant old man, with a demeanour unlike that of the Lorax. 

At least that’s how McCarten portrays Diamond in the musical, which opens with the American singer-songwriter in the present (and portrayed by Robert Westenberg) sitting uncooperatively in a therapy session.

“This isn’t going to work,” he mutters off the top to his therapist (Lisa Reneé Pitts). “I don’t like to talk about myself.” 

Pessimistic as he may be, the guy’s right. “A Beautiful Noise” never does work. And that’s because the show never really talks about the real Diamond, with a plot so thin it resembles a Wikipedia entry set to song and dance. Forget about scratching beneath the surface; this show barely even tickles the skin. 

To be clear, I don’t doubt Diamond’s mental health challenges. He’s talked openly about these struggles, particularly his experience living with Parkinson’s disease, which prematurely ended his touring career. “There used to be a stigma around talking about mental health and thankfully through the years, it’s become an important and accepted topic of conversation,” Diamond writes in his program note. 

But it’s one thing to raise awareness of mental health. It’s something else to trivialise the issue and use it as a framing device to further the plot of this biographical musical. And it’s in this act of translating Diamond’s mental health struggles for the stage that McCarten’s story goes very wrong.

One of the issues with this therapy session framing device is its vagueness. It’s not clear until the very end why Diamond is even in therapy, and McCarten merely seems to equate the singer’s mental health struggles with a perpetual state of grumpiness.

Then, there’s the fact that these scenes come across as completely unbelievable. Throughout, the therapist reads from Diamond’s songbook as she tries to psychoanalyze her patient using his lyrics. (Is this therapist even board certified? If she is, someone ought to report her for malpractice!)

Conveniently, these lyrics bring about a series of flashbacks for this older Neil Diamond and out pops his younger self (portrayed by former “American Idol” winner Nick Fradiani). 

In these flashback sequences, McCarten’s script follows a cookie-cutter formula: We get a cursory look at Diamond’s early Brooklyn days, playing at the music club the Bitter End; his rags to riches career trajectory; those days he was signed to Bang Records. 

All this may be benign. But what’s most frustrating is how McCarten depicts Diamond’s wives, particularly his ex-wives Jaye Posner (Tiffany Tatreau) and Marcia Murphey (Mary Page Nance). Reduced to nothing more than cardboard cut-outs, they seemingly arrive out of nowhere, belt their faces off for a few songs, then disappear as unexpectedly as they appear. 

At least McCarten attempts to make them come across as somewhat sympathetic. But this is still Neil Diamond’s story. And Jaye and Marcia merely serve as obstacles and narrative complications within it. 

As Diamond in his prime, Fradiani delivers a chillingly spot-on performance… If his acting is somewhat stilted (his arms dangle awkwardly when they’re not holding a guitar), you could chalk it up to the fact that the man he’s playing was never the most charismatic figure.

Westenberg, however, is completely underutilized in this show. A terrifically captivating actor (he originated the role of Cinderella’s Prince and the Wolf in “Into the Woods,” for goodness sake!), he’s relegated to mostly sulking his way through the entire two-and-a-half-hour production, usually while sitting in an armchair and observing the action from the sidelines. 

Despite this dull framing device, director Michael Mayer’s production is almost always in motion and prevents the show from flatlining. Emilio Sosa’s many, many costumes are true to the era, while Steven Hoggett’s choreography looks pulled straight out of a Studio 54 disco extravaganza. 

At the top of the second act, Mayer’s production, to its credit, made me entirely forget that I was at a biographical jukebox musical. David Rockwell’s set opens up to reveal an onstage band. Kevin Adams’s pulsating lights mimic those at a music concert. And for several brief moments on opening night, it felt like I was at a Neil Diamond tribute concert. (Even the audience, in some numbers, are encouraged to sing along.) 

If only the entire show could be like that. But instead, it’s only fleeting. And when we return to McCarten’s story, what we’re left with are fragments of a man, and a piecemeal story that never adds up to a whole.