"Memphis," which won four Tony awards last spring, including Best Musical, will send its touring company to the Fox next May 1. But the movie version, or a sort-of movie version, is playing at three area theaters this weekend, and it's a terrific show, with fine music, superb dancing, outstanding singing and above-average singing.
It's delightful entertainment, but a movie, or even a sort-of movie, is different from a play on a stage. On stage, the entire play is out there, and audience members make their own decisions on what, or whom, to watch at any given moment; if you want to watch the lead dancer, fine, if you want to focus on the little blonde in the second row, that's okay, too. A person called a director makes those choices in a film, and what you watch is his or her decision. When it comes to turning a play into a movie, on many occasions cameras cover the stage and that's what the audience sees. "Memphis" is more like a real movie, in that it used numerous cameras, with the director making the choices from shot to shot.
Speaking of cameras, the version I saw last night at the Esquire was extremely dark. The play isn't as brightly lighted as, say, "Spamalot," but there was a problem either with the digital print or with the projector. I saw quite well, but it was dark enough to probably miss a few things.
Showings of "Memphis" are supposedly scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday) at 7:30 p.m. at St. Louis Mills, matinees Sunday and performances Tuesday night at the Gravois Bluffs, O'Fallon and St. Louis Mills. Given the less-than-adequate information distributed by the "Memphis" p.r. representatives, I'd check with the theater before making plans.
The movie, like the play, is not great, but it's very entertaining. Chad Kimball, as Huey Calhoun, a white Memphis ne'er-do-well who loved the music of the black honky-tonks, is a terrific talent, though I did not care for his accent and found him occasionally channeling Robin Williams. As a radio d.j., he played what then was called "race music," leading it to the top of Memphis charts with his hokey-folksy, ungrammatical approach to introducing records. He's a good dancer in Sergio Trujillo's exciting choreography, but there's far more talent in the dance chorus, which even includes a jump-rope routine. Kmball's strong suit is his endurance, since he is on stage all except 10-15 minutes of the two-hour production. And that part could be improved by eliminating the self-serving commentary that preceded the show like an out-of-tune overture.
Montego Glover, a splendid soprano, is Felicia, whose rendition of "Colored Woman" is a show-stopper. As the woman loved by big-ego Huey, who would rather have a hidden relationship in Memphis than an open one in New York, or elsewhere in the north, she carries a crippling burden. Relationships between mixed-race couples are exposed, as they are in "Dreamgirls" and "Hairspray," but not solved. "Everybody Wants to Be Black on Saturday Night," picks at that scab a little. So does Cass Morgan as Huey's mother, who sings and acts well, and doesn't seem the least embarrassed by the sudden change from racist to egalitarian, a move accomplished by the choir performances in just two visits to a black church.
There's excellent work from J. Bernard Calloway as Delray, Felicia's brother, and his duet with Huey, "She's My Sister," is strong stuff, reaching more of a point than much of David Bryan's Tony-winning score. James Monroe Iglehart, as Bobby, is a terrific dancer. The show has been on Broadway for some 18 months, and it looks good. Christopher Ashley directed smoothly and Joe Di Pietro's book is good enough, though it stumbles here and there.
Compared with other movies and plays around town this weekend, it's outstanding entertainment.
The filmed version of the Broadway musical "Memphis," is scheduled to be on several movie screens this weekend.
—Joe