Theater Review: “Memphis” Doesn’t Sing the Blues

In Memphis, the risqué exhilaration of early rhythm and blues is airbrushed away, to the point that the show appears to argue that from its inception black music sold out to mainstream tastes.

Memphis: The Musical. Music and lyrics by David Bryan. Book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro. Directed by Christopher Ashley. Choreography by Sergio Trujillo. Musical supervision by Christopher Jahnke. Sets by David Gallo. Lights by Howell Binkley. Costumes by Paul Tazewell. Presented Broadway in Boston. At the Citi Emerson Colonial Theatre, 106 Boylston St., Boston, MA, through December 23th.

By Bill Marx

Felicia Boswell (Felicia) in the National Tour of MEMPHIS. Photo: Paul Kolnik

I was interested in the touring production of Memphis because, back in 2003, I saw the show at an early stage in its development at the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA, before it went on to Broadway to win a slew of Tony Awards in 2010. I remembered that the storyline, loosely based on the career of Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips, fizzled out after the first act, once the musical’s protagonist, named Huey Calhoun, succeeded in playing rhythm and blues records by black artists on a ‘white’ station during the segregationist ‘50s. The staging was flaky yet fun, though Huey’s romance with a black singer sounded a sour whimper in the second act, intimations of the real life Dewey’s death at the age of 42 from alcoholism, mental illness, and a drug habit undercutting an attempt to deliver standard Great White Way uplift.

The transformation of Memphis into a Broadway powerhouse, and now a slick but entertainingly packaged touring production, is a lesson in how timid Broadway has become. The musical has succeeded commercially as a hermetically sealed fantasy (casting Huey as an idealistic crusader for integration) that is afraid to play the music that the DJ fought to popularize—the platters Dewey spun on his radio show in the early ‘50s, the sounds that got the white kids jumpin’ and their parents riled up. These were the raw and amazing blues of Muddy Waters, B. B. King, and Howlin’ Wolf, the early juiced-up genius of Elvis Presley. There are few reminders of that kind of gutbucket music in Memphis—apparently because it was not bland enough. Anything in the saucy mode of “Little Red Rooster” would be too alarming.

Instead of serving up the raw and the rough, David Bryan’s score (with lyrics by Joe DiPietro) offers an amalgamation of Whitney Houston-ized tunes that alternate between feel-good stomp-fests and preachy ballads. It is sort of like doing a musical about the music of early Louis Armstrong with a score by Kenny G. None of the great musicians, black or white, that Dewey played on his radio show are mentioned—it is as if the very sound of Elvis’s name would flatten the show’s distortions and compromises.

Bryan Fenkart (Huey) & Felicia Boswell (Felicia) in the National Tour of MEMPHIS Photo: Paul Kolnik.

Granted, Broadway audiences may not be able to handle the sexuality of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Back Door Man,” but B.B. King was a successful artist who managed to carry out a mainstream career for himself without turning into an easy-listening sell out. Is Muddy Waters really that scary to aging tourists? The truth is, teens who loved Dewey’s radio show would have been bored to tears with Memphis’s slicked up and/or message-heavy tunes. The kids were galvanized by the anarchy of early rhythm and blues, the spiritual growl of gospel without the distracting calisthenics. Instead of the funky truth, Memphis serves up synthetic music that serves as a platform for Huey’s fight for integration, to the point that his love for the blues becomes an afterthought, an excuse for his self-destructive idealism. Huey as the martyred conciliator of blacks and whites is delivered via a plot whose every move is predictable, its dialogue telegraphing every turn toward the routine.

Ratcheting up the overcoming hatred theme pumps up Memphis’s second act but at the price of demanding that every song be a rousing anthem for something: overcoming racial prejudice, loving your hometown, savoring the beat in your soul, whatever. The risqué exhilaration of the music Dewey played is airbrushed away, to the point that Memphis appears to argue that from its inception black music sold out to popular tastes.

That said, the touring production of Memphis is a well packaged, marvelously synchronized machine that presents some rousing voices, especially Felicia Boswell as Huey’s ambitious girl friend. There’s a solid, if one-note, performance from Bryan Fenkart as Huey. Before he sinks under the weight of the show’s good intentions, the performer evokes the “cracker” eccentricity of the real Dewey, who was unvarnished to the point of being unlistenable. The band is lively (though they are kept on a tight rein), and the choreography is performed with impressive energy. But the showbiz talent can’t make up for the fact that Memphis ignores the earthy art it purports to celebrate.

1 Comment

  1. Ken Bader on December 15, 2012 at 9:50 pm

    I couldn’t agree more and couldn’t have said it better.

    I would add that just as Memphis watered down the excitement of early 50s blues and r&b for fear of sending Grandma and Grandpa scurrying to the exits, so did it replace the drama of Dewey Phillips’ life with a yawn-inducing show-biz plot. Louis Cantor’s biography, Dewey and Elvis: The Life and Times of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Deejay, attributes Phillips’ rise to more than mere flamboyance. Phillips’ discerning ear and daring taste enabled him to influence not just the bobbysoxers depicted in Memphis but Sun Records producer Sam Phillips (no relation) and teenage fan Elvis Presley.

    Similarly, Phillips’ fall from a combination of alcoholism, painkiller addiction, and erratic behavior was considerably more compelling than what I saw on stage. I’ve got to think that a recreation of the visit a drunken Phillips paid to Graceland at 3:00 one morning in 1957, shouting, “I’m through with you, Elvis!” would have topped any scene in the cliche-ridden second act.

    I hope some of the audience members who gave Memphis a standing ovation the night I attended are inspired to seek out some of the music that the real-life Dewey Phillips exposed, Sam Phillips produced, and both loved — Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, Elvis, and many more. That’ll show ’em what all the commotion was about!

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