Carole King loves ‘Beautiful’ but it’s too painful to watch

You'll find Carole King's life onstage in "Beautiful," now in previews at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre.

But don't look for King herself anywhere in the house.

The reclusive "Tapestry" ­singer-songwriter has yet to see the autobiographical musical, and, sources say, she has no intention of ever going.

"It's too emotional for her to sit through," says a production source. She may appear on opening night — Jan. 12 — but only onstage after the performance, to take a bow.

An intimate show, "Beautiful," which has women in the audience weeping, deals with one of the most painful episodes of King's life — the breakup of her marriage to Gerry Goffin. He ditched her for another woman shortly after the birth of their daughter, Sherry, one of the show's producers.

An emotional highlight of the show occurs when Jessie Mueller, who plays King, sings "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" to her baby after Goffin (Jake Epstein) tells her he's leaving.

King sat through a workshop of the show last year and burst into tears during the scene. She left the workshop without saying a word to anyone, but gave the show her blessing.

Goffin saw the show during its San Francisco tryout earlier this year, and is planning to attend the opening in New York.

Sherry Goffin Kondor keeps her mother up to speed on what's happening at the Stephen Sondheim. And her friends, the great songwriters Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, have been "omnipresent," says a source. They have several songs in the show — including "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" and "Make Your Own Kind of Music" — and are prominent characters in the story.

Neil Sedaka was in the house the other night, and decided to get going on a Broadway musical about his life and songs.

"Neil flipped for the show," says a source.

Keep your eye on Mueller, who, I'm told, is giving a Tony-worthy performance. She was the only person to emerge unscathed from the debacle of "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" a few seasons back. "Beautiful" may seal her credentials as a Broadway leading lady.

Everybody's
yapping away about "Six by Sondheim," the HBO documentary about The Anointed One.

But don't miss "Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did For Love," a documentary about the composer of "A Chorus Line" airing Dec. 27 on PBS's "American Masters" series.

I attended a screening last week with bunch of theater people, and everybody loved it.

Directed by Dori Berinstein, the movie makes splendid use of archival footage of Hamlisch's appearances on talk shows over the years. Because he was so quick-witted and could knock out anything on the piano, he was in demand on the talk-show circuit. There's some very funny footage of a young Hamlisch and a young Tim Rice hamming it up on a show Rice briefly hosted in London back in the 1970s.

"What He Did For Love" makes the important point that "A Chorus Line" lifted the fortunes not only of Broadway but of New York City itself in the mid-1970s.

(I'm exploring this theme in a book I'm just finishing up for Simon & Schuster. As everybody I interviewed said, the success of that show gave New York, which was on the brink of bankruptcy, a shot of adrenaline.)

"What He Did For Love" doesn't shy away from Hamlisch's flop shows that followed his second hit, "They're Playing Our Song."

The duds were "Smile," "Jean Seberg," "The Goodbye Girl" and "Sweet Smell of Success," which contains what several people in the documentary argue is one of Hamlisch's best scores.

The film is downright poignant when Hamlisch tries to make sense of failure, fearing that the kind of songs he writes no longer have currency.

But he was nothing if not resilient, and he was hard at work on a new show, "The Nutty Professor," when he died, suddenly, in 2012.

"What He Did For Love" is a fine tribute to a towering talent and an ebullient character.

My friend, writer David Margolick, is at work on a book about Sid Caesar and "Your Show of Shows." He'd love to speak to anyone who watched the show or was influenced by it. You can reach him at margolick@gmail.com.

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