‘Tina – The Tina Turner Musical’ Review: Love For Broadway’s Newest Star’s Got A Lot To Do With It

There’s a terrific YouTube clip of Janis Joplin, resplendent in a 1969 splash of crimson, purple and gold, trying to explain to a square Dick Cavett why Tina Turner is her favorite singer, “the best chick ever.” The Ike and Tina Turner Revue, Joplin continues, includes Ike “her husband and bandleader.” But, Janis makes clear, “Tina’s the show.”

I can’t think of a better description for Tina – The Tina Turner Musical, opening tonight at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. An unsurprising by-the-books book, plenty of one-dimensional side characters – including that husband and bandleader – and the sort of expository dialogue done somewhat better than most jukebox musicals, but not enough.

But all is forgiven when the explosive mini-concert arrives, post-narrative. As the set expands up and sideways into a platformed expanse full of red and yellow lights, the full band is revealed and Warren performs an ecstatic song-and-dance, giving Tina the ending that somehow, someway, captures all the excitement, joy and flamboyance of that real-life woman whose name is finally and fittingly in the brightest of lights once more.