What is Motown? A record label? A sound? An Ideology? A family? For those who had their music published on the Motown label it was probably all of those, and this Musical, about the rise and fall of entrepreneur Berry Gordy is a fast-moving evocation to those heady days of 'colored music' going mainstream.
The plot is simple; we are the audience to witness the 25 year Anniversary Celebration concert in honour of Gordy, and all his past recording artistes have come back to sing for one night together. But the company is failing, in debt, and all his proteges have left and signed with other labels, and Gordy simply does not want to celebrate something which he feels he has lost.
The rest of the show takes you in flash-back chronology through Gordy's life from being a small boy interested in boxing, to owning a grocery store, to writing songs, and finally to being the owner and producer of Motor City Town Records, sorry make that Motortown Records, which finally became Motown!
Using ultra-modern technology to create multi-coloured and multi-layered 3D screens for set and moving images was a nice idea since it makes it easier to tour, but sadly for me at least, this technology was not available at the time the Musical is set, and although the psychedelic twirly patterns and transluscent lights were gaudy, hippy and trippy, they somehow seemed too bright and difffused focus from the performances themselves.
My other criticism of this show is that it moved too quickly. This was a whistle-stop show. Blink and you missed something; cough and you missed a whole scene! The costuming and hair styles were wonderful, and they really did take you quite accurately through the years, but the libretto (if indeed it can be called that) skipped too much and left the audience with too many gaps to fill themselves. Further, there were very few songs performed in their entirety. This made it far more of a montage and much less of a Musical. I was actually unsure of what to call this show as it flirted between 'pop concert', 'news', 'musical', and 'variety concert' with alarming alacrity.
The cast however didn't seem to mind; in fact, just the opposite, their enthusiam for and commitment to this show was palpable, and their energy levels were almost off the scale. Cameos of famous recording artistes of the era such as Smokey Robinson (Nathan Lewis), Marvin Gaye (Shak Gabbidon-Williams), Stevie Wonder (Daniel Haswell), and a young Michael Jackson (one of four boys in rotation) were enough to create woops of approbation from a majority middle-aged audience. The choreography was excellent and on pointe every time, and with the ensemble tributing The Temptations and The 4 Aces, these proved to be very popular too.
Much was made of Gordy's relationship and consuming love of Diana Ross and her eventual split from The Supremes. Ross (Karis Anderson) played the part with youthful glee as a naive and willing star-in-the-making, and a hard-nosed businesswoman towards the end. Her first solo performance at The Frontier Lounge in Las Vegas was one of the more poignant moments of the show.
It was however the powehouse performance of Edward Baruwa aa Gordy which really made the show for me. He simply 'owned' the stage and the show lifted a notch on his every entrance and a notch even further when he started to sing. His solo rendition of 'Can I Close The Door' was both heartbreaking and powerful, and was the absolute stand-out moment of the show for me.
Set against a backdrop of civil unrest; a time when segregation was enforced and racism was rife, through to the recording of Martin Luther King's speeches by Gordy, and then moving on into the Vietnam War and again the dividing of a nation that that brought with it, Motown's music was joyous, high-spirited, hopeful, and more importantly all-inclusive, and it still is to this day. The political 'message' of the show was never understated, but neither was it overstated either; and its omnipresence in the show helped us to remind ourselves of the political struggles these real people had to cope with.
A high energy show, full of heart, and lots of soul, with a truly feel-good vibe and positive message, which, in our own times of civil unrest, can't be a bad thing!
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 27/2/19
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