[NEohioPAL] REVIEW: MEMPHIS, at Players Guild Theatre

[Tom Wachunas via NEohioPAL]

Much Ado About Hockadoo

By Tom Wachunas 

   …There comes a time when muddywaters run rough /There comes a point when a man has had enough /Like a friendwho always stands by me/ Memphis Knows Me /Memphis Shows Me / How this lifejust has to be… - lyrics from “Memphis Lives in Me”

   After seeing theopening night Players Guild performance of Memphis,I was finally convinced that director and actor/singer Jon Tisevich must havesome sort of virus. Furthermore, he consistently passes it on to his superbly versatilecast members who sing, dance, and act with often thunderous ebullience. They’reclearly all too eager, indeed grateful to be infected. It’s a viral tendency youcould call the personification of unbridled passion. Combined with the sizzlinglive eight-piece band under the direction of keyboardist Steve Parsons, and thehot-stepping, hip-swiveling choreography by Michael Lawrence Akers, Memphis is a show that will rattle yourrafters and send your heart soaring.  

   This Tony Award-winning musical (book and lyrics byJoe DiPietro, music and lyrics byDavid Bryan) was partly inspired byDewey Philips, one of the first white disc jockeys to play black music forwhite audiences in Tennessee during the 1950s. Here we meet Huey Calhoun, awhite, ninth-grade dropout with dreams of being a star radio (and later TV)host who wants to turn the whole world on to black R&B music (or “racemusic” as it was disparagingly called by whites). His passion for the music ismatched only by his love of Felicia, a beautiful black singer he meets at anunderground club owned by her brother, Delray. 

    The dramatictension in this story springs from the romance between Felicia and Huey in aplace and time fraught with racial bigotry, and significantly underscored hereby Delray’s stern objections to Huey’s pursuit of Felicia. As Delray, MarkDillard is a towering presence who turns in a genuine and at times chillingportrait of a pragmatic custodian of his sister’s career interests whileremaining her militant protector.

   As Felicia, Joy Ellis is absolutely stunning.She deftly balances a complex array of sensibilities. They range from fierceindependence and sassiness while basking in the warmth of love, to festering woundedness,and uncertainty about her future with Huey. It all comes out with heartrendingsincerity and electrifying urgency when she sings “Make Me Sronger,”  “Colored Woman,” and “Love Will Stand WhenAll Else Falls.” When she was singing, I think I heard not just a voice, but a collective soul. I thinkI heard history. Passion personified. 

   And then there’sJon Tisevich as Huey. Director as singer and actor. And again, passionpersonified. Riveting. With a soft southern drawl, he’s quirky, endearinglyeccentric, even awkward, and a seemingly unlikely mentor of an aural phenomenonthat would change the world of popular music. Whenever he gets excited about anidea he impulsively blurts “hockadoo!” Like Felicia, he’s at once driven anddefiant, vulnerable and victorious. His powerful singing of “The Music of MySoul” and “Memphis Lives in Me” are among the most riveting moments of theevening. 

   A similarly moving andstartling passage transpires when Justin Woody, in his role of Gator, who wastraumatized into muteness by the childhood memory of his father being lynched,suddenly finds his voice to sing a desperate call for racial peace in “Say aPrayer.” Woody’s tearful voice is an unearthly wail, a piercing, bittersweetplea to Jesus.      

   Other memorablescenes include Micah Harvey, wickedly smarmy as the white disc jockey BuckWiley, and sounding downright lewd as he breathily announces the latest “hothits” from Patti Page and Roy Rogers. Anthony Mitchell Jr. plays Bobby, ajittery janitor cajoled into singing on Huey’s Memphis TV show. He begins hissong, “Big Love,” in a sweetly apologeticand nervous manner, but quickly enough morphs into a gyrating firebrand whobrings down the house with charged vocals along with startlingly agile jumpsand splits. 

   And speaking ofcharged, Stephanie Cargill, playing Huey’s mother, sheds her character’sbigotry in a grand way as she belts out “Change Don’t Come Easy” with all theintensity of a preacher at a revival meeting. She exhorts, “Gotta electrify!..Wegonna glorify!..Come on, everybody justify!…ooh, I gotta testify!” 

   One distinctionbetween a good theatre experience and a great one is that good theatre willinvariably leave audiences pleased that they have been sufficiently“entertained.”  Great theatre certainlyachieves as much, but in the end aspires to something far more edifying. 

   As Players Guildproductions so often demonstrate in sublime fashion, great theatre is alwayskind of baptism, and in the case of Memphis,an especially immersive experience wherein we witness the ineffable power ofart to inspire hope, harmony, and healing in a dissonant, fractured society. Inother words, art that electrifies, glorifies, justifies.

    So hey, I’minfected. I just gotta testify.

   MEMPHIS, at Players Guild Theatre, inthe Cultural Center for the Arts, THROUGH SEPTEMBER 3 / 1001 Market AvenueNorth, Canton, Ohio / Shows Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. /Tickets $29 adults, $26 seniors, $22 for 17 and younger / Order tickets at www.playersguildtheatre.com/memphis  or call 330.453.7617
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