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<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"><b>Much Ado About Hockadoo</b></p>
<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center">By Tom Wachunas<b> </b>
</p><p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal"><b><i><span> </span>…There comes a time when muddy
waters run rough /There comes a point when a man has had enough /Like a friend
who always stands by me/ Memphis Knows Me /Memphis Shows Me / How this life
just has to be… - </i></b>lyrics from “Memphis Lives in Me”</p>
<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal"><span> </span>After seeing the
opening night Players Guild performance of <i>Memphis,</i>
I was finally convinced that director and actor/singer Jon Tisevich must have
some sort of virus. Furthermore, he consistently passes it on to his superbly versatile
cast members who sing, dance, and act with often thunderous ebullience. They’re
clearly all too eager, indeed grateful to be infected. It’s a viral tendency you
could call the personification of unbridled passion. Combined with the sizzling
live eight-piece band under the direction of keyboardist Steve Parsons, and the
hot-stepping, hip-swiveling choreography by Michael Lawrence Akers, <i>Memphis </i>is a show that will rattle your
rafters and send your heart soaring. <span> </span></p>
<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal"><span> </span>This Tony Award-
winning musical<i> (</i>book and lyrics by
Joe<i> </i>DiPietro, music and lyrics by
David Bryan<i>) </i>was partly inspired by
Dewey Philips, one of the first white disc jockeys to play black music for
white audiences in Tennessee during the 1950s. Here we meet Huey Calhoun, a
white, 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 “race
music” as it was disparagingly called by whites). His passion for the music is
matched only by his love of Felicia, a beautiful black singer he meets at an
underground club owned by her brother, Delray. </p>
<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal"><span> </span>The dramatic
tension in this story springs from the romance between Felicia and Huey in a
place and time fraught with racial bigotry, and significantly underscored here
by Delray’s stern objections to Huey’s pursuit of Felicia. As Delray, Mark
Dillard is a towering presence who turns in a genuine and at times chilling
portrait of a pragmatic custodian of his sister’s career interests while
remaining her militant protector.</p>
<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal"><span> </span><span> </span>As Felicia, Joy Ellis is absolutely stunning.
She deftly balances a complex array of sensibilities. They range from fierce
independence and sassiness while basking in the warmth of love, to festering woundedness,
and uncertainty about her future with Huey. It all comes out with heartrending
sincerity and electrifying urgency when she sings “Make Me Sronger,”<span> </span>“Colored Woman,” and “Love Will Stand When
All Else Falls.” When she was singing, I think I heard not just <i>a </i>voice, but a collective soul. I think
I heard history. Passion personified. </p>
<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal"><span> </span>And then there’s
Jon Tisevich as Huey. Director as singer and actor. And again, passion
personified. Riveting. With a soft southern drawl, he’s quirky, endearingly
eccentric, even awkward, and a seemingly unlikely mentor of an aural phenomenon
that would change the world of popular music. Whenever he gets excited about an
idea he impulsively blurts “hockadoo!” Like Felicia, he’s at once driven and
defiant, vulnerable and victorious. His powerful singing of “The Music of My
Soul” and “Memphis Lives in Me” are among the most riveting moments of the
evening. </p>
<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal"><span> </span>A similarly moving and
startling passage transpires when Justin Woody, in his role of Gator, who was
traumatized 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 a
Prayer.” Woody’s tearful voice is an unearthly wail, a piercing, bittersweet
plea to Jesus. <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><i><span> </span></i></p>
<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal"><span> </span>Other memorable
scenes include Micah Harvey, wickedly smarmy as the white disc jockey Buck
Wiley, and sounding downright lewd as he breathily announces the latest “hot
hits” from Patti Page and Roy Rogers. Anthony Mitchell Jr. plays Bobby, a
jittery janitor cajoled into singing on Huey’s Memphis TV show. He begins his
song, “Big Love,” in a sweetly<i> </i>apologetic
and nervous manner, but quickly enough morphs into a gyrating firebrand who
brings down the house with charged vocals along with startlingly agile jumps
and splits. </p>
<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal"><span> </span>And speaking of
charged, Stephanie Cargill, playing Huey’s mother, sheds her character’s
bigotry in a grand way as she belts out “Change Don’t Come Easy” with all the
intensity of a preacher at a revival meeting. She exhorts, “Gotta electrify!..We
gonna glorify!..Come on, everybody justify!…ooh, I gotta testify!” </p>
<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal"><span> </span>One distinction
between a good theatre experience and a great one is that good theatre will
invariably leave audiences pleased that they have been sufficiently
“entertained.”<span> </span>Great theatre certainly
achieves as much, but in the end aspires to something far more edifying. </p>
<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal"><span> </span>As Players Guild
productions so often demonstrate in sublime fashion, great theatre is always
kind of baptism, and in the case of <i>Memphis,</i>
an especially immersive experience wherein we witness the ineffable power of
art to inspire hope, harmony, and healing in a dissonant, fractured society. In
other words, art that electrifies, glorifies, justifies.</p>
<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal"><span> </span>So hey, I’m
infected. I just gotta testify.</p>
<p class="ydp59d8962dMsoNormal"><span> </span><i>MEMPHIS, </i>at Players Guild Theatre, in
the Cultural Center for the Arts, THROUGH SEPTEMBER 3 / 1001 Market Avenue
North, 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 <a href="http://www.playersguildtheatre.com/memphis" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.playersguildtheatre.com/memphis</a><span> </span>or call<span>
</span>330.453.7617</p>
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