THEATRE REVIEW:
KPBS
AIRDATE: July 18, 2003
There are classic musicals and
there are music classics. No one would consider "Smokey Joe's Café" a
classic musical, but this revue, now playing up in Vista at Moonlight Stage
Productions, features a dance-happy nostalgia-trip of early rock 'n' roll
songs. There's no story, just an impressive playlist of nearly 40 tunes penned
by the prolific, groundbreaking, Grammy-winning duo of Jerry Leiber and Mike
Stoller. There are some bona fide greats here, like "On Broadway,"
"Stand by Me," "Spanish Harlem" and "I'm a
Woman." And then there are the novelty songs, "Poison Ivy,"
"Yakety Yak" and "Love Potion #9." Director/choreographer
Paul David Bryant, who did knockout work last summer on "Ragtime," is
putting himself and eight other talented triple-threats through their paces for
a high-octane evening that shakes the roof for a time, but wears out its
welcome after awhile. Still, there are some killer solos and great group
numbers. Each performer gets to strut his or her stuff, but the showstoppers
are Eric Anderson's Elvis-channeling "Jailhouse Rock," Vonetta
Mixson's "Hound Dog," Charna Felthous' mile-a-minute moves in
"Teach Me How to Shimmy" and Shirley Giltner's two ultra-sexy,
boa-slinging sultry songs, "Don Juan" and "Some Cats Know."
Don LeMaster heads up a socko 7-piece band, and the park setting couldn't be
sweeter. Bring a bottle of wine, picnic or dance on the grass, and take a
stroll back to a simpler time, when a love potion made you kiss a cop and only
fools fell in love.
If you're tempted to sing along
with "Smokey Joe," you may know every note of "Fiddler on the
Roof," a classic musical by any definition. On the other hand, as its
central character would say, it seemed that many in Starlight's 57th-season
audience were "Fiddler" virgins, and what a thought-provoking,
tear-jerking, satisfying experience it was for them. The timeless tuner, based
on an 1894 story by renowned Yiddish writer Sholom Aleichem, concerns the
impoverished dairyman Tevye, his five daughters and their fictional Russian
village of Anatevka. The 1964 songs, by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, have
entered our collective consciousness, from "Tradition" to
"L'Chaim" to that wedding perennial, "Sunrise, Sunset." The
story still resonates, musically and thematically; all immigrants
struggle with the need to embrace change and maintain tradition. Jeannette
Thomas deftly directs a massive and competent cast of 60, backed by a stirring
16-piece orchestra. With a commanding and comical Tevye like Stephen Reynolds
at its center, the show still has the power to move, inspire and inform. And that's
classic.
I'm Pat Launer,
for KPBS news.
©2003
Patté Productions Inc.