‘The Notebook’ review: Broadway musical doesn’t match the film’s sweep

a popular movie starring a young Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. Like Pavlov’s pups, millennials habitually sob during that 2004 film, and the production has seized upon its teary reputation by selling branded tissue boxes. During the final 10 minutes, the noses are deafening.I suspect, however, that it is audience members’ fond memories of the movie and book, more so than the merely pleasant proceedings in the theater, that are prying open their tear ducts.Because as elegantly staged as “The Notebook” is by co-directors Michael Greif and Schele Williams, and despite boasting an appealing cast, the show amounts to a series of un-involving pencil sketches rather than a layered portrait of a decades-long love.Not a single change book writer Bekah Brunstetter has made improves the simple story’s effectiveness.

In most cases, the alterations dull its punch and turn it into a wispy memory play. A memory for them becomes an afterthought for us.The setting has been shifted from the South to the milder Mid-Atlantic. The characters have jumped ahead from the 1940s and World War II to the tumultuous 1960s and the moral ambiguity of Vietnam.

And the most damaging decision of them all: Three actors, instead of two, play Noah and Allie. Spliced once more, the audience never really gets to know them. Connection, to state the obvious, is not only a result of the lines characters speak or the songs they sing — we powerfully latch onto the performers who play a part.