INTERVIEW: Mark Jacoby on bringing honesty to his Neil Diamond portrayal

Photo: A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical stars, from left, Michael McCormick as Tommy O’Rourke, Tom Alan Robbins as Bert Berns, Linda Powell as Doctor, Mark Jacoby as Neil Diamond (Now) and Will Swenson as Neil Diamond (Then). Photo courtesy of Julieta Cervantes / Provided by DKC O&M with permission.

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A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical continues to bring Neil Diamond’s iconic American songbook to rapturous audiences on a nightly basis at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway. The show is not a typical jukebox musical, and that’s thanks to a clever and profound framing device that finds the character of Neil Diamond (Now) involved in an on-stage therapy session, talking about his life’s triumphs and struggles. This offers the audience a reflective perspective on this most accomplished of singer-songwriters, giving viewers the chance to see an older, wiser Diamond look back at how it all began and how his songs exploded on a global stage.

Mark Jacoby, a veteran of many Broadway productions, plays Neil Diamond in this therapy session. He sits in a characteristic comfy chair for almost the entire duration of the show, conversing with Linda Powell’s Doctor and watching the scenes from his personal history play out in dramatic and sequined form. Jacoby’s role in the show reminds audiences that Diamond’s story, with its ups and downs, continues to this day.

“I’ve been in a few big musicals, but this is an odd experience to not really sing until a little bit at the very end,” Jacoby said in a recent phone interview. “It’s primarily an acting role, the way I think about it, and it’s really challenging and it’s really stimulating. I’m kind of loving it.”

Before Jacoby jumped on this musical train, he was not overly knowledgable of Diamond’s many hit songs, which include everything from “Holly Holy” to “Sweet Caroline” to “Play Me.” This was in stark contrast to Will Swenson, the actor portraying Neil Diamond (Then).

“It wasn’t like our star, Will Swenson, who just had it in his bones,” Jacoby said about his learning curve. “He knew everything there was to know about Neil Diamond and grew up with a dad who was a #1 fan of Neil Diamond. So my research, if you want to put it that way, took the form primarily of watching Neil talk — not watching him perform, but interviews and visits with reporters and things like that, whenever he’d make a public statement or make a public appearance. … I was more interested in what he is like as an individual and what his world consists of apart from these rather extravagant performance values that developed as his career went on. I think of it more as a matter of who is he, not what does he do, what does he sound like, or what are his musical characteristics, his stylistic characteristics and all that.”

Jacoby finds the particular storyline of the ongoing therapy session in the narrative a refreshing one. Throughout the creative process of developing this piece, Diamond was open and candid about the struggles he’s encountered in his career and in his life, and having the character sit there with a doctor seems appropriate and fitting.

“I’ve been impressed from the beginning of my participation in this how candid he and his team are willing to be about what he calls the warts and all,” said Jacoby, who has appeared on Broadway in Ragtime and Showboat. “There are rather intimate aspects of his life that are very candidly displayed and talked about and exposed, and the battle that he fights with Parkinson’s Disease … has rendered him unable to perform. That’s stated pretty clearly in our show. He’s not in any way trying to paint a rosy picture of the high level of his humanity. He needed to be in front of audiences, and the fact that he can’t do that anymore is really the big tragedy of his life.”

Jacoby’s scene partner is Powell’s Doctor. The two have known each other for quite some time. Powell has been associated with the production a bit longer than Jacoby, so when he went in to audition for the Neil Diamond (Now) role, he actually read the part with Powell feeding him the lines.

“Linda and I go back a little bit,” said Jacoby, who was also in the Bob Fosse-directed Sweet Charity. “We worked together in an acting class with Michael Howard, who is now deceased. So I knew her, and we were friendly. It’s been a real positive relationship as actors working together and as friends. I appreciate her, and maybe that’s not so great. That’s really a little bit of an impediment to producing the therapist-patient relationship because traditionally in psychotherapy you don’t have a personal relationship with the therapist. You don’t ask the therapist, ‘How’s your family? What did you do on your vacation?’ That’s not the way it used to go. I think that’s loosening up a bit now. … I remember one time I ran into my therapist on the street just inadvertently. He was completely gobsmacked. He had no idea what to do, seeing a patient outside of the office, so the fact that Linda and I know each other and are friends, we’ve got to work around that and keep the doctor-patient thing the way it should be.”

Jacoby believes the framing device of having the Neil Diamond (Now) character watching his memories manifest on stage is an interesting, albeit challenging, storytelling technique. The actor said the many recognizable hit songs that beautifully come to life in front of the audience are a representation of what the older Neil Diamond is saying to his therapist.

“Yes, it’s acted out, and we see concert numbers, and we see narrative numbers, numbers that illustrate points in his life, but I’m not witnessing it,” he said. “The conceit is that what the audience sees in a number like ‘You Don’t Bring Me Flowers’ or ‘Play Me’ or ‘Hello Again,’ those are things that I am telling the therapist about and explaining, ‘This happened, then this happened. This is how I felt about it. That’s how she reacted to it, etc., etc.’ And even though it is portrayed for me, I’m producing it; I’m not witnessing it.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical, featuring Mark Jacoby, is now playing at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway. Click here for more information and tickets.

Updated: 08/23