The plot
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical is a compelling emotional rollercoaster of a tale about how Anna-Mae Bullock became the “Queen of Rock and Roll”, Tina Turner.
Act 1 begins when Anna-Mae is a young girl who lives with her sister, mother and violent father. The story moves quickly through her childhood until she is 17. It is then that Anna-Mae meets Ike Turner, who christens her Tina Turner. Her career takes off, but her personal life is tumultuous. (Warning: several abuse scenes were graphic, disturbing and tough to watch.) The second act finds Tina penniless and separated from Ike. She works hard to rebuild her image and climbs her way to stardom.
The Music
What’s not to love about the music?! The highlights included River Deep Mountain High, What’s Love Got to Do With It?, Private Dancer, and of course Proud Mary.
The Actors
First of all, I have to say that Skye Turner (who played young Anna-Mae) was phenomenal. I LOVED her! Follow this kid…she will be a star one day!
Nkeki Obi-Melekwe was Tina at our performance. She has so much energy and her dancing was spot on. Obi-Melekwe’s voice is powerful voice and she has a huge range. The raw emotion that she displayed while singing really captured me. Unfortunately, I felt her spoken words lacked depth and sincerity; her acting did not move me the way her singing did.
More Thoughts:
The costumes are amazing and the sets suit the story for the most part. I did, however, take issue with the projections on the screen at the back of the stage. The images were sort of smoky and colors were kinda psychedelic and they were in constant motion. This backdrop did not make sense to me and I found it to be extremely distracting.
The show is 2 hours and 45 minutes long. This includes an intermission and a “concert” at the end (which was awesome!). It did move slowly for me at some points and I feel that about 30 minutes could have been shaved. Overall, though, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical was AMAZING. I highly recommend going to see it!
