Soulless Musical Remake Washes Ashore

Audiences going to the musical “Beaches” are more likely to know what to anticipate: the story of a decades-long, feminine friendship with loads of schmaltz, some sass, and a mega-hit music, “Wind Beneath My Wings.”

The musical, which started its development a dozen years in the past — and most not too long ago in a 2024 Calgary manufacturing, is based on the 1985 novel by Iris Rainer Dart which “inspired” the 1988 Touchstone Pictures movie starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey, which had a screenplay by Dart and Mary Agnes Donoghue.

The sisterhood saga was remade, less notably, as a 2017 Lifetime tv film starring Idina Menzel and Nia Long — with Dart as co-screenwriter. But it’s the earlier hit movie— and the character tailor-made to Midler’s persona — that most doubtless will probably be on theater-goers’ minds.

Sadly there’s little wind beneath this uninspired musical’s skinny and tattered wings. Even the movie’s critic-defying, pinky-swearing fanbase could also be disenchanted in the barebones manufacturing, jarring plotting, drained dialogue and ham-handed staging. A tour is slated after the restricted Broadway run.

As in the novel, the musical — which Dart again co-scripted, this time with Thom Thomas — begins in the ‘80s with fictional singing sensation Cee Cee Bloom (Jessica Vosk) rehearsing a quantity for her long-running TV selection present. Receiving an pressing telephone name, she impulsively exits without clarification. Of course, a flashback follows.

It’s 1951 on an Atlantic City seaside the place the 10-year-old, red-headed Cee Cee (Samantha Schwartz) is performing in a kiddie present. While under the boardwalk, actually, she meets fairly little Bertie (Zeya Grace), misplaced and alone. Bertie, a well mannered, grammar-precise, deb-destined daughter of WASP fortune is immediately dazzled by the pint-sized Jewish dynamo who peppers her speech with showbiz slang and Yiddish expressions.

After that encounter, they keep in contact through letters until years later when Bertie (Kelli Barrett), fleeing from a controlling mom — and her personal marriage ceremony — seeks out Cee Cee, who’s a struggling actress in a summer time inventory company. It’s there they start their in-person relationship as younger adults.

The musical stays a cliche-filled melodrama paying homage to movie autos for Joan Crawford or Barbara Stanwyck. There’s misperceived betrayals, a shock being pregnant, sudden abandonment, a sentimental reconciliation, a deadly sickness and a tearful farewell. But for this uninspired outing you may go away the hankies at residence.

The movie made sensible and economical use of a few atmospheric tunes such as “Up on then Roof,” and “The Glory of Love,” interpreted by a single lead character who’s a charismatic performer. Here the musical highlight is shared with others, and to lesser impact.

The songs are by composing legend Mike Stoller, now 93, and a grasp tunesmith during the period through which a lot of the story spans. The musical numbers have a nice old-school Broadway really feel combined with pop and swing flavors. But none stand out and a few evoke templates of past present tunes. A duet by the women’s husbands suggests the condescending males of Sondheim’s “Agony.” There’s also the scent of a Kander and Ebb in a novelty quantity about each lady wishing they could possibly be like the other.

But that’s just it. Here opposites — elegant and brassy — are distractions, with odd-couple joking substituting for one thing more substantial. Their impact on each other is also unbalanced with Cee Cee seeing Bertie as BFF — Best Fan Forever. Though Cee Cee prompts some independence in her buddy, Bertie’s sheen hasn’t rubbed off on her needy pal. Only at the end does Cee Cee get a predictable semi-transformation.

Many of the new modifications in this version are clumsily offered. The pivotal scene that causes a break of their relationship is head-spinning. In a matter of minutes the best of pals go from being laughing buddies to creating bitchy remarks, then hurtful revelations, all with little motivation or sense.

The husbands in the women’s lives, performed by Ben Jacoby and Brent Thiessen, are written as cardboard characters, good for a few plot turns and then out of the image. The other women in the pals’ lives — primarily their moms — don’t fare a lot better and are lowered to near-caricatures. Push the present’s path just a bit additional and this cleaning soap opera may simply slip into parody, not less than in a number of scenes. (Some of the mugging is already there.)

Vosk and Barrett do admirable work however are restricted by the materials and get little assist in the writing or staging. A strong-voiced Vosk is charged with echoing Midler’ performance. Barrett makes the most of the few-but-effective moments that reveal an individual more than a kind.

Production values are minimal with low-tide set designs, under-populated numbers and sketchy choreography. Cee Cee’s present biz outfits stay low cost wanting, even as her movie star and fortunes soar. (A “Hocus Pocus”-looking wig and a tacky costume in what is meant to be a elegant manufacturing quantity? Really?)

The inventive and producing groups — including Lonny Price and Matt Cowart who co-direct — even miss on the musical cash shot. “Wind Beneath My Wings,” the movie’s bittersweet and potent Grammy-winning ode (written by Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley) was an emotional gesture of gratitude and charm. But right here Cee Cee is alone on stage performing just another star flip.