When Megan first suggested we see this, I was under the impression that it was a Christmas show. I don’t know what I thought; Temptation like groups singing Carols with a Motown beat?
No.
It was the Berry Gordy story, or the rebuttal to Dreamgirls.
At first, Megan thought to take me and our husbands to the show for Christmas. Husbands were less than enthusiastic about the idea so instead she made it a girl’s night out and got tickets for me, Katie and Josie. We left the babies with the men and we headed out for a night at the theater.
We were all very excited.
I loved it from the opening number (the Temptations and the Four Tops have a sing off) to the final curtain.
I had flashbacks to seeing both groups with Jay, way back in the olden days when we first got married. We saw the Temptations at the Guthrie, which was great but we saw the Four Tops at a bar called Duffy’s which was crazy fun.
The show begins with the prep for the big Motown Anniversary TV show in 1983.
This was the television special that made Michael Jackson a superstar. He’d already done well with his first solo album, Off the Wall, but his performance in the TV show blew the world away. The next year he released Thriller and the rest was history. Motown the Musical is not about Michael Jackson.
While the acts that made Motown famous are busy rehearsing, the big question is “Will Berry Gordy, the man who made the acts that made Motown famous, show up?”
He says “No way. I don’t want to be in the same room with those traitors who abandoned me.”
The story is told in retrospect, starting with Gordy’s childhood memory of Joe Louis beating Max Shmeling. Gordy’s dream is to do something for the world that will make blacks as happy and proud as Joe Louis did. Like Dreamgirls, it begins in a car dealership and grows as Gordy takes talented kids and turns them into stars.
The music is much better than Dreamgirls. It’s the real deal. Like Jersey Boys.
Smokey Robinson is there, right from the beginning. One of my favorite scenes is when he has his first big hit, My Guy, with Mary Wells. He then writes a follow up song for the Temptations.
“What’s it called?” Gordy asks.
“MY Girl.” Smokey says. Everybody laughs.
Then they do what is arguably the greatest song in the Motown songbook.
The Temptations, the Four Tops, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and the Supremes are the focus of the first act. Gordy’s personal and professional relationship with Diana Ross is the heart of the show.
Just in case you think the first act can’t be topped, the second act begins with Diana Ross introducing the world to the Jackson 5.
The kid who played Michael was fantastic.
Everyone was fantastic!
The sets were incredible, the costumes made all of us drool and the music was MOTOWN.
It was absolutely the best way to kick off Christmas Week!
If Jay and Tyler had any idea what they missed, they’d kick themselves.