The weather turned cold in Manhattan today, but the passions boiled over in the musical version of The Notebook, based on Nicholas Sparks’ rabidly popular novel and the subsequent cult favorite movie. As you probably recall, the movie divided the central lover roles in two —- young romantics, Allie and Noah — and their older selves, a woman who had drifted into dementia and her husband who visits her and reads her a diary of their much-roadblocked relationship.
The stage show does the film one better with Younger, Middle, and Older Allie and Noah, a device that proves surprisingly effective. Still, the standouts in this cast are Broadway veterans Maryann Plunkett and Dorian Harewood as the oldest couple.
I’m sure there are audience members who are immune to the story’s extreme emotionality, but I was not one of them.
Hap Erstein
Next: A new musical called Suffs, about a history of the suffragists movement, with an all-female cast and creative team.