Intermission Impossible

Why did Jerry get fired? Was he a bad shoe salesman? Do people just not like him? Was he saying the wrong stuff? Reading the wrong things? Is he just paranoid? Or are his friends out to get him? There's a lot going on in Alan Brody's NewWorks@TheWorks-winning play Victory Blues. But what's it all about?

I'm going out on a limb and guessing that  Brody's read a little Arthur Miller. Victory Blues plays out like a working class sequel to Miller's WW2 aftermath drama All My Sons. It tells the story of three young couples — old friends living in the same apartment building, adjusting to life after wartime in the greatest, most prosperous country the world has ever known.

Only one friend isn't prospering. While his buddies enjoy the fruits of winning, poor shoe salesman Jerry Greisinger just barely gets by. Jerry saw combat, and he's still struggling with that. His friends didn't, and they don't get why their old pal's worried about other people's problems when he could be out there getting his big fat slice of winner cake. They don't get why America's red scare bothers him so much, since he's not a commie. (Or is he?) They don't get why he won't forgive a friend's terrible betrayal, since it was motivated by love and concern for him, and was going to make his life so much better in the end.
Jerry's wife Barbara doesn't get it either. Her friend May, who's going to college against her husband Lenny's wishes, does. Test patterns fill the TV screen. Casseroles occupy the shelf like noodly metaphors. Tension builds.

Everything about Victory Blues reminded me of All My Sons. More specifically it reminded me of Chris Keller's monologue about watching his friends die in combat and the shock of coming home:

"I went to work with Dad, and that rat‐race again.  I felt... what you said... ashamed somehow.  Because nobody was changed at all.  It seemed to make suckers out of a lot of guys.  I felt wrong to be alive, to open the bank‐book, to drive the new car, to see the new refrigerator.  I mean you can take those things out of a war, but when you drive that car you've got to know that it came out of the love a man can have for a man, and you've got to be a little better because of that.  Otherwise what you have is really loot, and there's blood on it."

It's not that Jerry doesn't want to work in his friend Howie's appliance store. Like Miller's combat-tested protagonist who couldn't look at the refrigerator without obligations, he can't. Meaty stuff.

Director Jaclyn Suffel and a first rate ensemble do a fantastic job setting everything up in act one. They do even more heroic work after the break, carrying the script like a wounded soldier when things get repetitive and the device used to demonstrate Jerry's isolation winks at self-parody.

So the last act could stand some trimming and focus. There's lots of really fine acting collected here. And a terrific soundtrack that lifts things in all the right places.

Barbara Greisinger – Renee Davis Brame

Howie Cohen – Jeff Posson

Alice Cohen – Nichol Pritchard

May Black – Lena Wallace Black

Lenny Black – Kinon Keplinger

There’s nothing subtle about the Tennessee Shakespeare Company’s production of Comedy of Errors, and I suspect The Bard would have wanted it that way.

I’m sure you’ve all seen Shakespeare reduced to mush because the director and players were too reverent to the material. Sure, Shakespeare was a great dramatist, molder of language, blah blah blah. But he was also a guy who had a side hustle writing erotic poetry. He was the Elizabethan equivalent of a B movie producer, and nowhere is that more evident than in the setup for Comedy of Errors. As TSC founder Dan McCleery noted in his opening address to the crowd at the University of Memphis, this play was basically a ripoff of a Latin play called Menaechmi by the Roman playwright Plautus. Shakespeare looked at the story, in which a set of twins separated at birth meet years later, causing an escalating progression of mistaken identity gags, and said ‘If one set of twin is funny, TWO sets of twins would be HILARIOUS!”
I’m as big a Shakespeare fan as the next English major, but I had never seen Comedy of Errors produced before. It’s pretty clear that most of the play is just Willy Shakes having fun riffing. The two Dromios, Syracuse (Blake Currie) and Ephesus (Nicolas Dureaux Picou) take the brunt of the slapstick violence meted out by their increasingly flustered masters Antipholus of Syracuse (Joey Shaw) and of Ephesus (Colton Swibold). Among director Tony Simotes’ more interesting experiments is the casting of the twins. Shaw and Swibold share a strong resemblance, but their characterizations mark them as quite different people. Shaw’s Syracusian brother is bold and not a little mischievous, while Swinbold’s Ephesian Antipholus is a decadent noble elevated by good connections with the Duke (Stuart Heyman). The Dromios, on the other hand, are completely different physically while being functionally nearly identical in character.
All four male co-leads (I guess that’s what you’d call them) acquit themselves admirably, as do the always great Phil Darius Wallace as Egeon, the father of the two Antipholuses whose imminent execution by the Duke provides the comedy’s ticking clock tension. On the distaff side, Ephesian wife Adriana (Claire Hayner) and her sister Luciana (Rachel Bruin) serve as capable straight women for the increasingly convoluted comedic conundrums.

Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeare’s earliest works, but the plotting is amazingly tight. The playwright throws gags fast and thick, and isn’t about to wait around for you to get the jokes. The players have the unenviable task of breaking through the smartphone addled modern brains of the audience who are likely struggling with the cognitive overhead of interpreting Elizabethan English on the fly. Director Simotes has his cast going big, telegraphing the gags, giving everything the hard sell. Combined with the Ottoman themed stage dressing, it gives the proceedings the feeling of authenticity. I can’t imagine Dromio of Syracuse’s extended fat joke was delivered with much subtlety to the groundlings in 1594. And let’s face it, despite what sounds like flowery language today, none of these characters are terribly bright. Thanks to the performers’ energy, TSC’s Comedy of Errors is an entertaining romp. 

South Pacific's a peppy musical and liberal touchstone — a Greatest Generation romance set in WWII's Pacific theater and stuffed with 20th-Century standards in almost every sense of the word. But contrary to what the show's famous song says about racism, when it's so systemically ingrained audiences easily mistake the fetishization of submissive Asian girls for tragic romantic love, it has to be carefully untaught. Otherwise it perpetuates with the aid of broadminded heroes like Rodgers & Hammerstein's Emile de Becque, the French planter who says all people are equal and totally had kids with a Polynesian woman but still parties with peers who pay indigenous laborers so little they need American soldiers to harass the competition. To borrow an obvious but useful line from New York Times critic Ben Brantley, "few things in showbiz date more quickly than progressive politics," and today South Pacific — progressive to the point of being scandalous when it landed on Broadway in 1949 — plays out like U.S. Imperialism the Musical!

That's an observation, not a complaint.

South Pacific has always been a conversation piece. Its creators fought hard against fierce pushback to make it so, and in that spirit Theatre Memphis' production feels like a sparkling blue souvenir from a far away land — old and brittle in places, but kept in good condition to pass on to the grandchildren. The musical's frame is naive but sophistication is evidenced in the character of Nellie Forbush a spunky self-described optimist who only sees the best in the world until she finds out the man she loves once loved someone of another race. Her racism is as naked as she is in the musical's pinup-inspired shower scene. It's as fine an example as the musical theater provides of otherwise good people unable to recognize their own prejudices, and ironic in an expansionist-friendly narrative girded with orientalism.  Will Nellie really wash that miscegenationing Emile right out of her hair?  Is extravagant romance in an exotic location with plenty of champagne a meaningful gateway to other kinds of love and tolerance? South Pacific remains vital because, like Nellie the lover who discovers she's a hater in a personally jarring revelation, its ideological shortcomings are so vulnerable, begging for critique, conversation and correction.
Theatre Memphis dares to be garish and when the community playhouse rolls out its big musicals extravagance pushes elegance under the wheels time and time again. Not so this round and even director Jordan Nichols trades his choreography-heavy style for restraint. In this South Pacific, relationships matter more than razzle dazzle. As a result "dames" keep their dignity, and so does the musical's Mother Courage character, Bloody Mary.

Often presented as a Tonkinese cartoon hawking her trinkets and cursing in broken English, Mary's easily criticized for selling her underaged daughter. In the context of privation, war and isolation it's not so hard to see the caring mother trying to get her children out of the plantation system the best way she knows how.

I can't say there's any real spark between Kent Fleshman's Emile and Amy P. Neighbors' Nellie, but great voices and emotional vulnerability add up to great performances.  Noby Ewards sings and acts Bloody Mary beautifully, never allowing the profit-minded character to become a gag. Oliver Pierce makes the hustling sailor Luther Billis an affable clown, and Bloody Mary's all-American counterpart. Bradley Karel cuts a heroic profile as Lt. Cable, without hiding any of his doomed character's flaws. Ensemble characters are perfectly cast, sacrificing finesse for verisimilitude to great effect. But the real stars here are the songs: "Cockeyed Optomist," "Some Enchanted Evening," "Bali Ha'i," "Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair," "I'm in Love With a Wonderful Guy', [DEEP GASPING BREATH] "Younger than Springtime," "Honey Bun," "This Nearly Was Mine" — and the list goes on. All of them perfect, and perfectly presented with lots of heart and little fuss.

South Pacific may not be the groundbreaking progressive statement it was in 1947. Nellie's proud Little Rock heritage will never be as bracing as it was when the film came out in 1958, months after Federal troops rolled into Arkansas to integrate Little Rock Central High. Today a script once described by right-wing critics as a tool of Moscow is more likely to be criticized by the woke left. But for all of that, it holds up better than so many mid-Century musicals, wearing its flaws more like scars than medals. Even in 2017, it wants to foster more than just a bunch of "Happy Talk," and that makes this artifact a keeper.

I’ve got a knack for blocking out distractions, but every now and then, one small thing can keep me from fully engaging with a play. In the case of Gem of the Ocean, I couldn’t figure out how a second story door leading to interior rooms might sit above a door leading outside, flanked by exterior windows up and down. Wilhelm screams were anticipated when characters passed the upper story threshold but, to my surprise, nobody fell to certain injury. I suppose it can be chalked up to an enduring truth about August Wilson’s problem play, Gem of the Ocean: 1839 Wylie is a house of mystery, where the veil of spacetime is thin. This is where Aunt Ester, the old home’s ancient inhabitant, transports pilgrims to an even more ancient city of bones. Nothing is normal here, and everything is.

Gem’s a fascinating work, packed with enough symbolism and code to build a Dan Brown novel around. It's the chronological beginning to Wilson’s century-spanning, 10-play Pittsburgh cycle introducing audiences to vivid characters, and situations of shocking currency. Like a set with doors to nowhere, it’s also something of a jumble, and probably the most difficult and daunting piece in Wilson’s 20th-Century puzzle.

Gem is a family tragedy that aims to redefine family. The people living in Aunt Ester’s house aren’t related, but they rely on one another like blood. The only true kin in this story of law, order, peace, mayhem and a  status quo looming like Armageddon, are Black Mary and her brother Caesar. She cooks for Ester in a poor but peaceful, charitable house. He wears a badge and relishes his role enforcing white interests.

Enter Citizen, a man with a secret, and a powerful need for soul-washing. Everybody told him to go to 1839 Wylie — a place of refuge and sanctuary. Times are so uncertain, and perilous for African-Americans there’s good reason to carry a heavy walking stick. There’s even debate over the relative merits of slavery, and the inevitability of prison. A man is dead because he was accused of stealing a bucket of nails from the mill. The man swore he was innocent, jumped in the river, and never came out — better free and dead than jailed for nothing. Before the show’s over the mill will be on fire and Aunt Ester, born at the dawn of the North American slave trade, will be in bondage once again.

As mentioned, the Hattiloo’s Gem has issues, but director Lawrence Blackwell’s production succeeds in ways an earlier production at Playhouse on the Square didn’t. The key difference is intimacy. A perfectly cast ensemble makes the audience feel like we’re all seated around the table together while Black Mary makes a pot of greens. When everything turns to blood and sweat and chaos, the sense of alarm and disruption is shared.

Speaking of, when this Gem cooks, it really cooks, but to contradict Aunt Ester’s constant advice to simmer down, somebody needs to turn the heat up and keep it up. This play's a slow burn in any case. Fumbled cues and lost lines can make a long play feel like bottled eternity. No bones about it.

“There was rockabilly. There was Elvis. But there was no pure rock’n’roll before Jerry Lee Lewis kicked in the door.” — Jerry Lee Lewis.

In the Summer of 2010 Cowboy Jack Clement and I talked about the Broadway musical, Million Dollar Quartet. Technically it's Cowboy Jack who recorded the famous event, but he's almost always airbrushed out of the myth. Clement got his break in the music business when Sam Phillips hired him on as sound engineer at Sun Studio, and he's vaguely referred to near the top of M$4 when Sun is briefly described as a "2-man" operation.  Clement wrote songs like "Teenage Queen," which sure would be fun to hear in a show about the early days of rock-and-roll, but is also missing here. On the country side, he wrote the honky tonk standard, "A Girl I Used to Know" and brought Memphis songwriter Dickie Lee's "She Thinks I Still Care," to George Jones. He was a producer, recording artist, disc jockey, grand interpreter of Shakespeare, and an Arthur Murray dance instructor. Clement was wonderfully weird in the way everything good about Memphis usually is. Poofed from the story, per Broadway.

"I'm not in it? Don't they have somebody operating the board," he asked and I told him, "Sam Phillips does it all."

"Sam went next door to Taylor's restaurant," Clement explained. "Carl Perkins was in the studio recording, but everything stopped when Elvis came in... I remember thinking I would be remiss if I didn't record this. So I moved a few mics around and recorded what happened."

So, safe to say, Million Dollar Quartet's not the best historical document. But all warts and so many better possible playlists aside, the Tony-winning musical (and inspiration for the cancelled (botched?) Sun Records) gets the Memphis dynamic mostly right.

Phillips knew he couldn't compete with Nashville. So he panned for gold in a river of rejects, outcasts and oddballs. "That was right down my alley," Clement told me, affirming, for a paper thin jukebox musical playing with fast, loose facts, the story on stage at Playhouse on the Square, is undeniably true. It just didn't happen like that. As with Jersey Boys, the actors channel their famous characters, making all the music themselves — no pit. Like any good rock-and-roll show, it's about much fun for the crowd as it is for the pickers making it happen right there together. This cast looks like it's having a good time.  No surprises — Playhouse on the Square's homecoming production has an easy, authentic vibe. False notes  stick out, but are quickly buried in surplus charm and reasonably good rocking.

For locals who somehow missed the lore, M$4 is a fictionalized account of the one and only occasion Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash were all at Sun Studio together. The conceit: Elvis has gone to RCA, but wishes he was still working with Sam. Cash and Perkins have deals with Columbia but haven't told anybody yet. Phillips has a secret too. He's been offered a chance to move to New York and join Elvis at RCA. As he watches his most famous artists leave for greener pastures he becomes more convinced that he belongs right where he is and swears he'd rather sell a hundred records made his way that a million with somebody else pulling the strings.


"This is where the soul of a man never dies," the fictionalized Phillips says of studio life. Stephen Garrett, last seen at Playhouse as Lonny the narrator in Rock of Ages is a natural in the part of young Sam Phillips, and nails the moment.

Kavan Hashemian's got the voice and the moves, but it's the boyish understatement that really sells his Elvis. See, there's tension here, and hurt feelings. Carl Perkins wrote "Blue Suede Shoes" and put it on all the charts at once, then watched Elvis perform it on national TV while he was laid up in the hospital after a catastrophic car accident.  But for all of his flash and good fortune, Hashemian's King is a sweetheart, bashful, humble and human to the core — qualities fans have connected with across generations. Nobody could ever stay mad at that guy for long. Stephen Hardy is similarly winning as the Man in Black. Nobody ever bothers impersonating the no less distinctive Perkins, and that's true here too. As it should be with the father of Rockabilly,  Isaac Middleton lets his guitar do the important talking.

But what of the Killer?

It's important to understand, it wasn't just a lyric in "Whole Lotta Shakin'" Jerry Lee Lewis wasn't faking. Not a bit. Not ever. I'm not even sure the wild man of Concordia Parish could have faked anything if he wanted to. That's always been a problem for M$4. Lewis may have been the class clown, but he was never just a clown. His edge as real as the Pentecostal abandon when he played. The Killer had swagger like an OG rapper, and real gone, crazy genius. He might smile and charm, and toss his pretty hair and be polite as you please, and he might even sit down when you tell him to — and he's told to often in M$4. But Jerry Lee's gonna get you some day, wait and see. The musical comedy counts on Lewis for laughs and POTS's Nathan McHenry delivers big on that score, at the expense of spiritual verisimilitude. Then he beats the piano to the ground, sings the hell out of his songs, and gives, and gives, and gives.

As I've mentioned, all the good stuff in Memphis is weird at the edges, and think that's the main thing Memphis the musical has over a sanitized M$Q. If Andy Kaufman hadn't thrown coffee in Jerry Lawler's face, David Letterman's craziest interview award might very well belong to Sam Phillips. All these cool cats had demons and this musical's light tone wouldn't suffer a bit if things were just a touch wilder. Michael Detroit's staging always errs on the side of cuddly —  that's fine too. And if some pieces are missing from the million dollar puzzle, at least one piece has been returned — sort of.

 Kathryn Kilger's a smokey-voiced delight as Elvis' squeeze Dyanne. Her songs and character are shoehorned in, but she makes herself essential as the mystery girl cropped from the famous photo.

On any given night you can go out in Memphis, lay down $5 or $10 and watch the latest crop of Memphis rockers kick out some fantastic jams, — weird and wonderful or tight and seasoned. Fun as it was, even the Broadway production left me thinking, "that was a hefty ticket for a decent cover band." M$4's  a paradox: Polished, commercial vehicle about raw creative force. The plot's soapy — better yet, it's 100% True Bromance. The best moments are jams, where characters find each other in the groove. Like the Killer, it is what it is. And whatever it is should probably play somewhere near Graceland or Beale St. every single August when the tourist monsoon hits. Until somebody gets the ball rolling on that genius plan POTS's fluffy teddy bear of a production will have to do.