Broadway review: ‘Ain’t Too Proud’ a singing, dancing, good-time Temptations rewind

Well, I ain’t too proud to say I had a good time. The Motown ballads, as we already knew, are irresistible, and the cast is tiptop. It also helps, and I ain’t too proud to say this, that I’m old enough to remember the lyrics, although I resisted every temptation to sing along. Remember “Baby Love,” “Get Ready,” “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” “My Girl,” and “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”? Thirty-one songs are included in whole or in part in the show’s score.

The show could be classified as bio-jukebox. The hot young playwright Dominique Morisseau, who’s also from Detroit, wrote its book, based on a memoir by Otis Williams, the last surviving member of the original Temptations (we learn at the end that all told there were 24 Temptations, although the originals are the great singers the whole world fell for as they rose to the top of every chart from New York to London to Paris, and then on to prime-time television).

Maybe inevitably, given this bio-jukebox genre, the book is a bit of a sentimental slog, tethered to chronology (and then we … ) since, as Otis remarks, several times, “Don’t nothin’ rewind but a song.” We hear about the familiar woes of the record industry: race, money, drugs, alcohol, and neglected families. Otis (Derrick Baskin, smooth and warm) narrates, as he recruits the group and they go on to success after success: Paul Williams (James Harkness), David Ruffin (the sensational Ephraim Sykes), Melvin Franklin (Jawan M. Jackson, with his astonishing basso profundo), and Eddie Kendricks (the fantastic Jeremy Pope, who just finished charming us as the lead in Choir Boy). They are all different but all uniformly excellent singers, and director Des McAnuff keeps it all moving along at a lively pace.

There are glimpses of the Supremes (Candice Marie Woods, Nasia Thomas, and Taylor Symone Jackson, all gorgeous), the equally fabuous and famous group in the Temptations spotlight.

The choreography by Sergio Trujillo is dazzling, and the guys prove themselves to be sensational dancers as well as singers. A good-time show.

Imperial Theatre, 249 W 45th Street, New York.