Opening night of Ain’t Too Proud at the Ohio Theatre generated an enthusiastic response. Patrons were dancing in their seats during the first act, clapping along to songs in the second, and sniffling and wiping tears in the third.
Copyright Emilio Madrid, 2021
By the time the final number of the Broadway in Columbus show kicked in, the whole crowd was out of their seats.
Part of what assisted this surging response was the irresistible tunes of its subject matter. Ain’t Too Proud follows Otis Williams from the streets of Detroit to the marquees of all the world’s cities with his iconic Motown group, The Temptations.
Ain’t Too Proud debuted in California in 2017. It made its first appearance on Broadway in 2019. It was nominated for 12 Tony Awards that year, including Best Musical, and it took home the award for Best Choreography.
The exposition/first act of the show took some getting used to, as the story is largely delivered through narration spoken directly at the audience. It felt somewhat imbalanced at the start but followed a formula that ended up generally persisting throughout; each scene consisted of about 30 seconds of narration, a vignette of an encounter, then a quick song-and-dance.
Once the group was together and everyone’s motivation was explained to the audience, Ain’t Too Proud started to pick up steam. The vignettes turned into full scenes, with increasingly enjoyable dialogue and emotional tension.
With backgrounds established, the characters were allowed time to breathe, converse and showcase their personalities. Broad smiles through carefully choreographed numbers started to be broken with glances of resentment between clashing chorus mates. Songs started to take on heavier themes such as drug addiction, child neglect and warring factions within The Temptations.
Songs were interlaced throughout the narrative – as is a given with a musical – but some felt slightly out of place and seemed more like they were there to give a secondary character something to sing.
Copyright Emilio Madrid, 2021
Jalen Harris and the National Touring Company of Ain’t Too Proud.
The music of Motown and the audience’s connection with The Temptations’ leader, Otis – played by Michael Andreaus – are the consistently engaging forces driving the narrative.
Motown super fans should be able to sing every word to the familiar tunes, casual fans are sure to recognize familiar icons of the era and those with no knowledge of Motown will be dazzled by the impressive choreography and irresistible pop tunes that are easy to pick up.
The cast for this show is relatively small for a blockbuster Broadway show. Because of this, however, every single performer must be at the top of their game.
The performances in this rendition of Ain’t Too Proud demonstrate all the vocal range necessary to capture the unbelievable talent of The Temptations. With varied vocal styles being a key plot element, every performer brings something unique to their respective lineups.
Woven into the story of Motown’s best are bouts with drug addiction, unplanned children, family drama and illness, all set against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement. Discrimination and violence are elements in this story but are not the central focus of the whole narrative.
Personal drama is played out through iconic numbers such as “Shout,” “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” and “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me),” to name a few.
The instantly-recognizable choreography moves to the story beats – always matching the speed and tone of the narrative. There is a good deal of potential for the spinning and swinging to look out of place during emotional scenes, but dancers were carefully directed to never detract from the weight of any particular scene.
Facial expressions and small movements were noticeable even from a distance and end up accomplishing the “show, don’t tell” principle that was somewhat lacking in the first act.
The show concluded properly with a litany of hits that were woven throughout, which brought the audience out of their seats. Even the conductor was two-stepping along to the smooth tunes of The Temptations.
Tyler Kirkendall is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at tkirkendall@cityscenemediagroup.com.
