Slant is mixed:
https://www.slantmagazine.com/theater/the-notebook-review-broadway/
The Notebook Review: On Stage, a Nicholas Sparks Adaptation Held Captive by Its Clichés
This show never transcends the clichés that it conflictingly both seeks to challenge and embrace.
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That’s in large part because of a score that showcases Michaelson’s gifts for creating sweet, folkish atmospheres but reveals the irreconcilable gap between her lovely, if static, tunes and the musical storytelling required to build character or intertwine song with dramatic urgency. Surely Allie and Noah could summon greater specificity than quatrains like, “It’s low and then it’s high/It’s good inside the bad/It’s loving when it’s hard to love/And laughing when it’s sad.”
Because writing for character means writing in distinct voices, there’s a thin line in musical theater songwriting between the simple and the simplistic: Unlike her gratifyingly accessible pop music, Michaelson’s score here falls on the wrong side too much of the time. That’s a shame, because, in revisiting the story, Michaelson and book writer Bekah Brunstetter have laid out the structure for a thoughtful adaptation that improves upon both the book and the film adaptation."
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"Even better than the rain, though, are the six actors embodying Allie and Noah in triplicate, with Plunkett (a Tony-winning ingénue in the 1980s but more recently a stalwart of off-Broadway dramas) and Woods as particular standouts. (All the Noahs sing gorgeously, even if only Harewood has any real complexity to play.) Plunkett, ever a warmly wise performer, provides a gently calibrated depiction of dementia with heartbreaking glimmers of lucidity.
It’s Woods, though, who emerges as The Notebook’s anchor as if from a better show, as she seems to know a whole lot more about Allie than the book and score tell us. And she infuses Michaelson’s melodies with a more pragmatic, precise musical theater interpretation that grounds the airy music in Allie’s reality. Woods gives The Notebook the kick in the pants it sorely needs and the dramatic momentum it otherwise seldom earns.
In a bit of astute casting, Allie and Noah are each played by actors of diverse racial identities. (Allie is played by two Black actors and a white actor, Noah the reverse.) That’s a creative, clear gesture of invitation to all audiences to see themselves in the story. But when we turn back to gaze on our own memories, may we all recall lives more richly drawn than Allie’s and Noah’s."
