BWW Reviews: MEMPHIS at Fox PAC has Great Singing and Dancing but Something is Missing

The national tour of MEMPHIS stopped in Riverside at the Fox Performing Arts Center (Fox PAC) for two performances on Friday and Saturday, February 13th and 14th. The show, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2010, features a Tony winning score by Bon Jovi's founding member and keyboardist David Bryan, lyrics by Bryan and Joe DiPietro, and book by DiPietro. Amy Marie McCleary is the touring show's director and choreographer. Her choreography, aided by dance captain Timmy Hays, is superb, as is A. Scott Williams's musical direction - the production features riproaring singing, dancing, and acting by the supporting cast. Unfortunately, despite the show's considerable strengths, the lead actors turn in mediocre performances, reducing the touring version's overall appeal.

MEMPHIS addresses the Civil Rights struggle in the 1950's South to allow white radio stations to play what most white people disparaged as "race" music. The story focuses on Huey Calhoun (Daniel S. Hines), a white, illiterate aspiring DJ who adores rock and roll, and who struggles to introduce the unfamiliar, controversial sounds to his white audience.

Huey frequents the underground black-owned nightclubs of Memphis, where he soaks up the music and falls in love with Felicia Farrell (Zuri Washington), a talented singer, whose brother, Delray (Keith Patrick McCoy), owns the Beale Street club. Neither family approves of the relationship, and Huey's racist mother (Pat Sibley) and the worried Delray, who wants to make his sister a singing star, do their best to break up the interracial romance. Meanwhile, Huey turns the station where he works into the most highly rated in Memphis and generates a fortune in income for his amazed boss (Chuck Caruso). But all is not well: Huey receives threats from angry whites, some of whom catch him and Felicia walking together and physically attack them. When Felicia receives an offer to perform in New York and wants Huey to take a job there, Huey must choose between his love for Felicia and his love for his home town.

Theatergoers looking for a good time listening to rock and roll, R&B, and gospel music, and watching rollicking dance numbers are likely to enjoy this production of MEMPHIS; the singing and dancing received well-deserved cheers at the end of each number at the performance I attended. In contrast, those attendees looking for an evening of musical story-telling will probably leave disappointed. This is because the production has two big flaws: Lack of chemistry between the two main characters, and their flat performances.

The love story lands with a thud - the romance has as much heat as the wedding night of a husband and wife who first met ten minutes before their arranged marriage. Mr. Hines and Ms. Washington do not bring the energy of the rest of their performance to the romance, and appear to simply recite lines of dialogue; neither character engages in sideways glances at the other, nor affects goofy smiles or faraway facial expressions that telegraph that they are lovers instead of friendly colleagues chatting on the subway.

Although Ms. Washington's singing causes people to sit up and take notice, she portrays Felicia, at least in her spoken lines, as too demure and calm to possess the fire in her belly necessary to claw her way to stardom. Is she, herself, determined to hit the big time, or is her brother playing the Phantom of the Opera to her Christine, in order to mold her into a star? Her ambiguous performance leaves this essential question unanswered.

The dialogue reveals that Huey is a high school dropout who has been fired from every job in which he has been employed. He dresses in clothes that look like out-of-style thrift shop rejects thanks to their clashing patterns and colors. Such a role screams for flamboyance (think Jim Carrey combined with Bill Hader and Harvey Fierstein), but Mr. Hines's interpretation is instead straightforward and bland. Mr. Hines's head and limbs flop around seemingly of their own accord, while the other men at the club gracefully defy gravity. Huey's oafish movements come across as unintentional, rather than a deliberate choice on the performer's part to make the audience laugh. His dancing cannot be what causes Felicia to give Huey a second glance. Neither can it be his vocal abilities; unlike the men in the Beale Street club, who have sonorous singing and speaking voices, Mr. Hines's voice, while pleasant, is hardly enough to cause a talented chanteuse such as Felicia to fall for him.

Huey has chutzpah and courage, and is loyal, earnest and funny. He is also willing to question long-held societal beliefs and to ignore them if they make no sense. A more inspired performance could shine light on these qualities and show that the unaccomplished, illiterate Huey has much to offer a gifted and beautiful young woman. Because of Mr. Hines's flat interpretation, however, the audience is left guessing.

The weaknesses in the lead actors' performances might not be so glaring in a show with a lesser supporting cast, but all of the supporting players in this production overshadow Huey and Felicia with their magnetic, adept performances. Rendell DeBose, as Bobby (the role originated on Broadway by James Monroe Iglehart) and Jonathan David Randle as Gator, who begins speaking after years of muteness brought on by seeing his father lynched as a child, balance each other in their respective comic and serious roles, and perform their parts to perfection. Chuck Caruso, as the beleaguered radio station manager driven crazy by Huey, but who can't fire him because Huey brings in too much revenue, generates lots of laughs. Pat Sibley, as Huey's hardworking, but poverty-stricken mother, manages to come across as sympathetic, despite her initial racism.

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