‘The Notebook’ Broadway Review: Romantic Saga Takes Another Step In Sentimental Journey

deadline.com:

To say The Notebook had a devoted, built-in audience before it sang so much as a note on Broadway would be an understatement this romantic tear-jerker never attempts.

Based on Nicholas Sparks’ 1996 bestseller about a young – then older, then much older – couple who survive a lifetime of tribulations (until they don’t), the musical opening tonight at the Schoenfeld Theatre is the theatrical equivalent of muzak, comforting in its unapologetically manipulative way and unabashed in its disregard for anything approaching the grit of the real world. (The 2004 film adaptation, if it’s known for much today besides nostalgia, is remembered for the early casting of Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams.) The reference to muzak, by the way, isn’t meant to suggest that composer Ingrid Michaelson looks back quite that far for her musical inspirations.

She has a lovely way with a melody, even if so many of the songs in Notebook are samey mid-tempo ballads sung directly to the the audience as if anything less obvious might risk one or two folks in the balcony missing some the point: Ally and Noah love each other.

Really, really love each other. Of all the show’s disappointments planted like so many wild flowers ready for plucking, none stings quite so much as Michaelson’s score.