By Brent Johnson, JerseyArts.com
originally published: 10/31/2019

If it weren’t for those guys from New Jersey …

“Beautiful,” the Tony-nominated hit about iconic singer-songwriter Carole King, ended its six-year residence on Broadway this past Sunday, and did so with a stamp on the record books. It closed as the 27th longest-running musical in Broadway history and ranks second among biographical shows about actual people. The only one above it: “Jersey Boys,” about Frankie Valli and his Four Seasons.

Now, “Beautiful” lives on with a national tour. It comes to New Brunswick next weekend with four performances at the State Theatre New Jersey, from Nov. 8-10.

And to James D. Gish, a lead actor in the touring version, there’s a simple reason for the lasting appeal. It’s not just the “time-tested beauty” of King’s music, he says. It’s the formula-kicking realism that anchors the production.

“The reason this show is set aside from the other jukebox musicals is that it isn’t a jukebox musical,” explains Gish, who plays Gerry Goffin, King’s ex-husband and her fabled songwriting partner. “It has so much depth.”

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“There are places where the audience will cry. And your heart does break. And there are places where you’ll belly-laugh,” he says. “It’s one of those shows where your emotional range, it spans the gamut over the course of those 2 ½ hours.”

“Beautiful” follows King as a teenage songwriting prodigy in the late-1950s through her success and turbulent marriage to Goffin in the ’60s and her reinvention as a recording superstar in the early ’70s.

But while many musicals feature characters switching suddenly from dialogue to song in a burst of emotions, “Beautiful” doesn’t do that. The characters sing only when they’d be singing in real life — such as when they’re writing or performing a tune. 

“The fact that it’s so much more real, it makes it that much more captivating for audiences,” Gish says. “And it feels like you’re really there in the room with them.”

His character adds to that heightened reality. Goffin wrote the lyrics to King’s music for a string of hits in the golden age of pop-rock — “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “The Loco-Motion,” “Take Good Care of my Baby,” “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday.”

But their marriage was also marred by his infidelity. And at one point, Goffin — who died in 2014 at age 75 — suffered a mental breakdown, which is portrayed as a key moment in the show. He even underwent electroshock therapy.

Gish calls Goffin the most challenging role he’s ever played — a “dark human being” and a “lost soul” in an otherwise uplifting show.

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“It’s a very multilayered character,” the actor says. “Where a lot of the time, he says this line because he’s actually trying to cover up that he feels like this. And that’s so prevalent in everyday life. You don’t always get that. Musical theater is usually a little more straightforward.”

“While the show is very positive and very empowering and has a very happy ending, Gerry is the only character who’s sort of art heads in the opposite direction,” Gish explains.

Gish didn’t originally dream of a life in theater. He grew up in little Bullhead City, Arizona, as part of a family of athletes and wanted to be an athlete, as well.

“But I am about as uncoordinated as a newborn cat,” Gish says with a laugh. “So at a certain point, I said, ‘This sucks. I am terrible at this.’”

One of his friends, though, heard Gish singing to the radio and was impressed. Soon, Gish says, he was “coerced” into joining choir and then into musical theatre.

“I really fell in love with it from there,” he remembers.

Gish studied business as Arizona State University but treated it like his day job. He couldn’t wait for classes to finish so he could perform at night.

“It was like my real life started the second I got out of school,” Gish recalls.

Luckily, he says, Phoenix has a professional theatre that allowed him to grow. He acted in eight shows there while attending school.

Gish now lives in New York City, which he calls a “different planet” compared to his hometown.

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“I remember getting off the plane the first time in New York City, and I think I actually took an Uber to the apartment I was staying at, and I remember being like, ‘This is not real,’” he recalls. “I got vertigo looking up at the towers.”

Gish admits he does miss those Arizona sunsets, as well as driving his car.

“But nothing compares the exhilaration of the streets of New York City, the opportunity there, and the excitement there in the hustle and bustle,” he says. “Sometimes it’s too much. But most of the time, it’s just right.”

“Beautiful” is Gish’s second national tour. He played Feuilly in “Les Miserables” earlier this year.

He’s also a recording artist, having released a classical crossover album called “So in Love” in 2017.

The hope, Gish says, is to have “a sort-of multifaceted career” of recordings, theatre, and concerts. But for the time being, he’s focused on the New York City theater scene. And he’s enjoying filling his nights right now with Goffin and King songs.

“This is the music that my parents played on the radio religiously when I was growing up,” Gish says. “When audience members come up and say, ‘This is the music I grew up with,’ I say, ‘Me, too.’ And I mean it.”

Keeping that music fresh eight shows a week means taking good care of his voice. For Gish, that involves two things: sleep and water. Lots of it.

“I probably drink the same as your average cattle,” he explains. “It’s insane how much water I go through.”

As for the emotion of playing Goffin each night? Gish watched interviews and “did a fair amount of reading” to prepare for playing a real-life person.

“My approach to him was to try to make sure that he came across like a real human being,” he says. “Sort of the formula of musical theater itself calls for actors to sort of play this heightened sense of reality where it’s a little bigger, more dramatic, a little goofier than in real life. But part of what makes Beautiful so strong is that it really gets into the nitty gritty of real life.”

“So I’m trying to find a way to portray this character in a way that is going to reach an audience member 150 feet away, but it’s still going to seem as real as if I was actually in the room speaking to the real Carole King as that person,” Gish continues.

He does want to emphasize, though: For all the drama, Beautiful is ultimately a happy, feel-good musical.

“By the end of the show every night, everyone’s up on their feet dancing with us,” Gish says. “The energy the show pulls out of people is unbelievable.”

Even after six years.

 

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