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Her story is one that much of the audience at Fair Park Music Hall knows well — a story we have talked about among friends, a story we have long read about or seen on the big screen. A pivotal moment from Turner’s life story — the moment she left her abusive husband Ike at the Statler Hotel — is part of Dallas’ history. Hers is a story we’ll show up to hear again.
Born Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee, Tina overcame her abusive family to start performing at 17 years old with the Ike and Tina Turner Revue.
For the next two decades, she would suffer physical and emotional abuse from her bandleader and later husband Ike Turner, who would also keep her from any of the show’s earnings despite her critical role in the duo.
The book is by Katori Hall, Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins, with music and lyrics entirely from Tina Turner’s discography.
Her story is apt for musical adaptation: her humble roots, her overcoming of abusive individuals in an equally abusive industry, her international love story, her eventual stardom — all stuff of legend.
Yet, with a run time of almost three hours, the show leaves the audience unfulfilled. As Tina charges through the plot, checking off each turning point in Tina’s life, it forsakes the intimate moments that explain that what made Tina Turner great was Tina Turner, and no one else.
Performers Ari Groover and Parris Lewis take on the athletic role of Tina Turner together, and their vocals carry the production until its very end.
Tina opens with Tina preparing for her solo debut in Brazil, sitting backstage and reciting a Buddhist chant. The stage fills with figures from her past until we are transported back to her childhood church in 1950s Tennessee. From that initial flash forward, the musical pushes ahead, maintaining the chronological integrity of Tina’s story (sometimes to the detriment of a compelling narrative).
Seeing a show at Fair Park Music Hall informs the viewing experience almost as much as the very set on the stage. Seating over 3,000 people, the hall filled with a collective gasp when Symphony King (Young Anna-Mae Bullock) starts to sing.
In this small-town church, Anna-Mae Bullock’s voice soars over the ensemble as they sing “Nutbush City Limits.” It’s a strong introduction into Anna-Mae’s upbringing that cuts straight to a fight between her mother Zelma (Roz White) and father (Kristopher Stanley Ward).The show introduces the rotation of abusive men in Tina’s life right from the start.
Her father attacks her mother. Her mother leaves Tennessee for St. Louis, taking Anna-Mae’s sister with her. It’s not until her later teenage years that Anna-Mae reunites with her sister and mother in St. Louis.
Anna-Mae is then courted by the scheming Ike Turner (Deon Releford-Lee), who renames her Tina and invites her on tour. While performing with the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, she is forced to abandon her secret romance with saxophonist Raymond Hill (Gerard M. Williams) and marry Ike Turner — all while carrying Hill’s child.
With ample fight scenes throughout Act I, Ike’s abuse does not cease with Tina’s pregnancy nor their children’s presence. And, with Ike menacingly as a backdrop, the show never finds any levity even while the Iketettes sing backup for the revue in shiny little dresses.
Ike and Tina Turner traverse the industry as a duo, although most of the interest is in Tina. (In one scene, legendary Motown producer Phil Spector, another member of the abusive men of Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, wants to record only Tina without Ike on “River Deep Mountain High.”)
The show’s most staggering moment takes place during “I Don’t Wanna Fight,” with a lone Tina on stage, blood on her face, begging for a hotel key so that she can escape Ike’s abuse.
Scheduled to perform in July 1976 in Dallas with the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, this scene takes place after Tina ran from her and Ike’s room at The Statler Hotel on Commerce Street to the Lorenzo Hotel, known as the Ramada Inn at the time.
As the Ike and Tina Turner Revue dies and Tina’s solo career begins, Ike’s lingering evil is undying. Tina sweats through the taxing Vegas show schedules, but Ike jumps through legal hoops to keep her out of any money. Even as Tina’s mother sits on her deathbed, Ike returns with a new scheme to thwart Tina’s independence.
It isn’t until Tina starts recording with Capitol Records in Europe that the story of the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll takes off. From here, a young Roger Davies (Dylan S. Wallach) shepherds her into a changing industry she already knows well. While working in Europe, she also meets the love of her life, Erwin Bach (Max Falls).
Tina stumbles into the well-trodden territory of jukebox shows. After all this singing and dancing, the audience is still left feeling like they don’t know the point of view of any of the characters. That is, despite marching through all the major happenings in Tina’s life, we’re still left wondering who Tina Turner was.
If not educational, Tina is still fantastically entertaining, however. The reenactments transport audience members straight to the 1970s with all of the decade’s coked-out glamour, flared jumpsuits and hypnotic dance numbers.
With all of Fair Park Music Hall on their feet as red and white lights illuminate the audience, Tina takes the show home with “Simply The Best” and two encore numbers.
For the final triumphant songs, the musical fully leans into itself as a rock concert (a place where the show seems to find itself). And it certainly makes a better concert than it is a musical.
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical runs through Feb. 4 at the Music Hall at Fair Park, 909 First Ave. Tickets are available at the Broadway Dallas website.
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Ava Thompson
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