Get ready — here they come!
“Ain’t Too Proud” arrived on Broadway Thursday night buoyed by a surge of nostalgia and a slew of Motown hits. But anyone who’s seen the earlier jukebox shows “Jersey Boys” or “Motown: The Musical” is bound to feel a dull sense of déja vu.
Subtitled “The Life and Times of the Temptations” and woven with golden oldies like “Get Ready,” “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” and “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” the show is based on a book by Otis Williams, the R&B supergroup’s founder — and its last living original member. While “ATP” packs some terrific performances, it’s a paint-by-numbers evening.
The story traces the Detroit band’s rise to fame and its personal and political conflicts, which unfold efficiently, if mechanically, in an “and then we did this” fashion. Williams (Derrick Baskin) narrates and introduces fellow Temps. There’s his neighbor (no relation) Paul Williams (James Harkness), Melvin Franklin (Jawan M. Jackson), Eddie Kendricks (the phenomenal Jeremy Pope) and David Ruffin (Ephraim Sykes).
Dominique Morisseau’s script essentially gives each man one main trait: Paul has the slick dance moves, Ruffin’s the one “addicted to the worst drug of all — the spotlight,” and so on. The women in their lives, either abused or left behind, hug the sidelines. Motown music mogul Berry Gordy appears now and then to act as the Temps’ Svengali.
The thrill is watching the Temptations find their collective voice, tight harmonies and moves. “The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts,” Williams likes to say, and it’s true. When the group’s performing “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” on “American Bandstand” and “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” with the Supremes on an NBC special, or mourning the death of Dr. Martin Luther King in “I Wish It Would Rain” (a dramatic turn that helps establish an otherwise vague timeline), the songs light up the stage.
That’s a good thing, since much of the production is drenched in gray. A lesson in the power of humor from “The Cher Show” could help.
A big plus is Sergio Trujillo’s choreography, with its dazzling spins and splits and piston-precise steps. But a fog of familiarity hangs over Des McAnuff’s staging: The director of the hit “Jersey Boys” and the miss “Summer” relies on his usual go-to tricks: kinetic characters, concert lighting, scrolling graphics, bare stage. And things get somber very quickly after Ruffin’s expulsion from the group.
“Ain’t Too Proud” is a polished tribute ride to an act that keeps on going, albeit with different singers: Williams notes there have been 24 Temps since the early ’60s, when the group started. Proud this show is — but distinctive, it ain’t.
