Neil Diamond bio gem makes ‘A Beautiful Noise’ on Chicago stage

“Cracklin’ Rosie.” “America.” “Forever in Blue Jeans.” “Sweet Caroline.” “I Am … I Said.” In “A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical,” now showing at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago’s Loop, those songs – and the stories behind them – are all included in a new musical about Diamond’s life.

Since Parkinson’s disease ended Diamond’s ability to perform his own music in concert, “A Beautiful Noise” takes an entertaining – and also sobering – look at the performer’s past and present. For adult fans, it’s a must-see.

If you’re a pop or rock music star like Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, Carole King, The Four Seasons or Elvis Presley, odds are you or your estate will be approached about the idea of creating a stage musical around your music. Sometimes, the resulting show has nothing to do with the artist’s actual life, with the songs put into a completely fictional storyline (such as the fun use of Elvis songs in “All Shook Up”). But if we’re lucky, the new musicals do focus on the stars, and we get a glimpse of their offstage lives, with “Jersey Boys” and “Beautiful” being the two most successful examples.

“A Beautiful Noise,” onstage through Nov. 24 in a national touring production, is centered on Neil Diamond’s own story, but through the framework of therapy sessions that the present-day Neil (called Neil – Now in the Playbill and played with solid emotion by Robert Westenberg) has with an unnamed “Doctor” (Lisa Reneé Pitts). Since Westenberg’s first words of dialogue to the Pitts character are: “This isn’t gonna work,” the Doctor suggests a different approach, bringing out a book of Diamond’s lyrics to see if his own words can encourage him to talk about his life and underlying issues.

Spoiler alert: The tactic works, and we get flashbacks of key events/performances from Diamond’s life decades earlier. Former “American Idol” champ Nick Fradiani truly embodies the physicality, frequent bouts of sadness/loneliness/self-doubt and amazing voice of Diamond’s younger self (Neil – Then in the program).

That portrayal is evident through numerous songs – often supported by 10 talented singer-dancers dubbed The Beautiful Noise in the program – as well as scenes that involve getting his first songwriting break from music industry exec Ellie Greenwich (Kate A. Mulligan), doing his initial live performance for a small nightclub’s patrons, and working through relationships with his first two wives, Jaye (Tiffany Tatreau) and Marcia (Hannah Jewel Kohn). We even see him make the very bad decision of signing a contract with a mob-associated record label, where trying to break the agreement might mean the execution of a different kind of contract.

Fradiani played Neil – Then in this show on Broadway; now he’s in the touring production. With all his practice nailing the Neil Diamond sound, the audience is in for a treat every time he starts singing. There are flashier scenes, but one that sticks out in my memory (and obviously the memory of Neil – Now) is the recording studio scene in which his compositions are sung by others until a “Kentucky Woman” soloist’s C-minus efforts prompt Diamond to step in and show him the way he’d heard it in his head, making it clear to Greenwich that he needs to sing his own songs. By the time the second act of “A Beautiful Noise” gets underway, the shy performer who only wanted to write music comes into his own with crowd-pleasing concert renditions of songs like “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show.”

Fradiani isn’t the only actor whose singing is excellent. While all the show’s songs were written and/or recorded by Diamond, Tatreau and Kohn use their lovely voices here to full effect in “Love on the Rocks” and “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.”

Costume designer Emilio Sosa, whose colorful designs ably reflect the styles of various decades, deserves a shout-out, as does choreographer Steven Hoggett, who puts the entire cast through their synchronized paces in many numbers. The work of lighting designer Kevin Adams is also crucial to the show’s success, not just because of his use of lights – often illuminating the audience as if we were at a Diamond concert – but also his effective darkening of stage areas to surprise us early on with the one-by-one appearances of The Beautiful Noise ensemble.

Anthony McCarten’s book of the show is smartly written. The inclusion of the Westenberg-Pitts present-day interaction means that we’re seeing a lot more than a concert. When the Doctor is able to probe especially revealing lyrics late in the show, you could hear a pin drop (or at least the sound of crushed ice being sucked up by a more oblivious-to-the-moment patron next to me). These more serious scenes elevate “A Beautiful Noise” above the din of many jukebox musicals.

In “A Beautiful Noise,” both Neil Diamonds glitter – and the musical is a serious gem.

• Paul Lockwood is a communications consultant at Health Care Service Corporation in Chicago, as well as a local theater actor, singer, Grace Lutheran Church (Woodstock) and Toastmasters member, columnist and past president of TownSquare Players. He and his wife have lived in Woodstock for almost two dozen years.

IF YOU GO

• WHAT: “A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical”

• WHERE: Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St., Chicago

• WHEN: Through Nov. 24

• INFORMATION: BroadwayInChicago.com