Weepies by Nicholas Sparks are so reliable that they sell tissues at the merch counter. The musical delivers, as Sentiment is the North Star of this page-to-stage adaptation, and those searching for an excuse to shed tears will find the musical delivers. The creators are targeting feeling at the expense of character, specificity or surprise. The Style section of The Washington Post covers everything from the arts, media, social trends, politics and fashion to personality and deep reporting. Click here for more Style stories.
The production is partially to blame because of its organizing conceit and sole creative risk. The younger and middle-aged versions of both Allie and Noah act out their shared past here. Harewood sings a gentle and friendly song about love overcoming the passage of time, "Time, time, time, time; it never was mine, mine, mine." The six versions of the lovers are performed by a group of performers. The fact that they are of various racial background allows viewers to stretch their imaginations, but the scrupulously colorblind casting also makes it hard for the show to make many other narrative choices. Even in the coastal Mid-Atlantic, their interracial sparks could have helped explain why their mother disapproves. Brunstetter's book, which spans back and forth through a half-century, resists differentiating the central pair with any identifying detail. An effort to maximize their relatability ends up sacrificing their flesh and blood. The result is anodyne and lacks the erotic charge of an attraction. Michaelson's pop score sticks to expressions of emotion like "Sadness and Joy" and "I wanna go back." The songs draw little inspiration from the different musical eras of the story, instead maintaining a pleasant and palatable contemporary gloss. Paloma Young's costumes and Greif and Williams's staging are subtle to a fault.
The affair at its core will be enough for waterworks for some fans of "The Notebook" whoNostalgia for the property will fill in the onstage blanks The musical treatment of mortality feels more real than an easy lever to pull.