It's all subjective and a matter of taste. There are good original musicals and bad ones, just as there as good jukebox shows and bad ones. It's all in the execution. I don't believe original musicals are inherently better than jukebox musicals, so comparing a good jukebox musical with a bad original show is a false equivalency. I do, however, think that an original musical has a tougher challenge in that it has to start at square one: You have to introduce your audience to new characters and tunes they've never heard. As opposed to a jukebox show, where people already come predisposed to love the nostalgia of recognizing favorite pop songs.
To me, ''Jersey Boys'' is one of the best jukebox musicals ever, thanks to Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice's book, which cleverly divides the stories of 4 guys into 4 seasons (get it?). It becomes a musical ''Rashomon'' in which each principal narrates part of the whole story. So smart. ''Ain't That Proud'' is put together by the dynamite duo that did ''Jersey Boys'': director Des McAnuff and choreographer Sergio Trujillo. The cast is wonderful; the show is slick, and the audience goes wild for the Temptations tunes they know. Given its Motown background, it also invites comparisons to ''Dreamgirls,'' a great original musical by Tom Eyen and Henry Krieger.
But for me, ''Ain't Too Proud'' isn't nearly as good as ''Jersey Boys'' or ''Dreamgirls.'' Its characters just aren't as vivid. To be fair, Dominique Morisseau's book has to juggle more characters (because they were so many Temptations and replacements), but few made a lasting impression on me, in a familiar story of showbiz tropes. ''Ain't Too Proud'' even recycles a tearjerking subplot about an absentee parent (that we already saw in ''Jersey Boys'' ). That said, I have no doubt ''Ain't Too Proud'' will continue its boffo office on Broadway, as it has at Berkeley Rep. The audiences are there for the fun Temptations tunes they adore, and they ''ain't too proud'' to admit it.
Updated On: 10/18/17 at 01:40 PM
