Memphis
Although it felt born full grown to those it blew away, when rock 'n' roll first hit the scene, it didn't spring from Zeus's - or, more apt, Dionysus's - thigh. It required a small band of intrepid disc jockeys to cross borders and spread the feisty news. Among the originals was Memphis's Dewey Phillips, who fought an offbeat crusade for the music he called "red, hot, and blue." He died of heart failure at 42 -- the Elvis of deejays. Joe DiPietro and David Bryan's Memphis pays a double tribute: to the Phillips-like deejays whose hearts ran ahead of the times and to the city of Elvis, B.B. King, and Johnny Cash. At the La Jolla Playhouse, Chad Kimball plays Huey Calhoun (i.e. Phillips), a white hipster eager to midwife black music to the world. In his first scene, Kimball establishes not only Huey's idiosyncrasies but also his bone-honest sincerity. Kimball rocks every tune and moves as if he's SDG&E's power grid. His performance is (a word misused these days to praise trivial things) awesome. Huey falls for Felicia, a talented African-American singer. Their taboo love's on a collision course with the blues. The at times choppy script could stress Felicia's struggle more (to break a barrier you sometimes have to break your heart), but Montego Glover does such standout renditions of her songs that the production truncates applause - for fear of extending the running time by ten minutes? Memphis has many potential showstoppers (the first act could use a trim, but which of Byran's rafter-shakers do you cut?). DiPietro's book fights a battle between the actual and Broadway expectations. In some ways the energized first act doesn't prepare for the tonal changes in the second, which shifts from striving for a dream to costs paid in full. And the conclusion's an unsteady compromise between wave-the-banner-high uplift and Phillips's exit to oblivion (why not give Huey a belated wake; that way, you get both). The book stumbles here and there, but overall the excellent production's hugely entertaining. The first 20 minutes are so hot, in fact, if the performers kicked them up just a smidge more they'd create a fire hazard.
Critic's Pick
When
Ongoing until Sunday, September 28, 2008
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm & 7pm |
| Tuesdays, 7:30pm |
| Wednesdays, 7:30pm |
| Thursdays, 8pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 2pm & 8pm |
