Book: Iris Rainer Dart and Thom Thomas. At: Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace. Tickets: 630-530-0111 or www.drurylane.com; $45-$60. Runs through Aug. 16
Hundreds of handwritten letters fill the stage for the new musical Beaches, now playing in a "pre-Broadway Chicago premiere" at Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace.
Those letters symbolize the exchanged missives of the show's leading ladies, although wags could joke that they also symbolize the pages and pages of rewrites Beaches has undergone since its 2014 debut at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia.
Sarcasm aside, Beaches has plenty of potential as a musical, and that isn't just capitalizing on the name recognition of the weepy 1988 Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey film adaptation. Iris Rainer Dart has teamed with composer David Austin and playwright Thom Thomas to adapt her 1985 novel of Beaches, a much-beloved paean to sisterly friendship in the face of life's adversity.
But Beaches had better be booked into one of Broadway's smaller theaters if it does brave New York, since the musical is largely an intimate two-hander that will get lost in a huge house.
Beaches follows the lifelong friendship between the brassy showbiz striver Cee Cee Bloom and the much more refined Bertie White from 1952 to 1985. Three sets of actresses portray Cee Cee and Bertie through the different stages of their lives, starting with precocious whippersnappers Presely Ryan and Brookly Shuck, and Samantha Pauly and Olivia Renteria as the teenage versions before concluding with Broadway veterans Shoshana Bean and Whitney Bashor as the adults.
Bean has the tougher task as Cee Cee, since she will inevitably be compared with Midler from the movie. Bean acquits herself well, playing up Cee Cee's brashness and crudeness with lots of gusto and a big belting voice. Yet she won't erase memories of Midler. Bashor, by contrast, has it easier since Bertie is so much more reactionary.
Director Eric Schaeffer does a straightforward job in staging the show, using the multiple Cee Cee and Bertie convention to best effect for the number "My Perfect Wedding" to show how child and teenage expectations of the big matrimonial day don't always pan out. Beaches has a supporting ensemble, but their roles feel largely fleeting and underwritten.
Austin and Dart's score is pleasantly ballad-heavy, though many will note how the number "What a Star Looks Like" feels like a pale imitation of "I'm the Greatest Star," from Funny Girl. The pre-existing "The Wind Beneath My Wings" by other writers has been interpolated in, but it feels like a defeat since the musical Beaches doesn't feature a new song to quite match it.
As it stands, Beaches is certainly entertaining enough, especially with some touching moments toward the end. But to make it on Broadway, more rewrites are probably necessary.
