Elvis People: Don't Be Cruel

In what must be regarded as a rather untraditional marketing move, two days before Thursday night's opening of Elvis People producer Robert A. Rush announced that the play would close on Saturday if there wasn't a significant upswing in ticket sales.  I'm afraid this review will not be a contributing factor to such an upswing, but playwright Doug Grissom's work seems an earnest, if ineffective, effort so let's just put this one to bed gently, shall we?

The play's web site tells us that 84% of all Americans say Elvis Presley has affected their lives in some way.  My own little informal poll of those in my circle would have put that figure a bit lower, but then I generally associate with the type that would more likely say their lives were affected by what Stephen Sondheim had for breakfast.

But let's just go with this 84% business.

In two acts, Grissom gives us ten unrelated vignettes involving that eighty-four percentile.  There are a few interesting ideas in the mixed bag, but the author never explores them with any kind of depth.  The opening scene showing a mother and father's distress at their teenage daughter's fascination with seeing Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show starts suggesting an attempt to hash out rock and roll's contribution to the generation gap but instead ends abruptly with an obvious punch line.  A tense discussion between Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker and an unnamed songwriter (presumably Scott Davis) over the appropriateness of the singer recording "In The Ghetto" goes nowhere and a lengthy lesson on the joys and heartbreaks of being an Elvis impersonator goes all over the place.

The attempts at humor, such as a sketch where a trio of Elvis flunkies are in a panic because they've run out of The King's favorite fudge ripple ice cream or another where a pair of inept thieves try and steal the newly dead Elvis body, are simply not funny.

Director Henry Wishcamper and his game cast (Jordan Gelber, Jenny Maguire, David McCann, Nick Newell, Nell Page and Ed Sala) give it an admirable effort, but the playwright supplies them with nothing but uninspired stereotypes.  The rise of Elvis Presley certainly was an earth-moving event in American culture but instead of delving into the reasons why his characters were so strongly affected by the artist the author merely puts them through rudimentary paces in unsuccessful attempts to be funny and touching.

Meanwhile, the design team does a terrific job.  As I entered the theatre, Cameron Anderson's whimsical set, featuring rows of white and black jumpsuits along with colorful 1950's dresses, made me laugh out loud in appreciation.  Robert P. Robins (lights), Theresa Squire (costumes) and Erin Kennedy Lunsford (wigs, hair and makeup) add nifty contributions in dressing up a mostly bare stage and Graham Johnson (sound) and Maya Ciarrocchi (video projections) provide entertaining bits of nostalgia between scenes.

Elvis People ends with a representation of a brick wall of Graceland, covered in graffiti, as the backdrop for a monologue that tries to give the locale the same reverence as Jerusalem's Wailing Wall.  If the two acts that had preceded these last few minutes contained some degree of insight and sensitivity, the image might have worked.  Instead, it's just another wrong note.

Photos by Carol Rosegg:  Top:  Jordan Gelber

Center:  Nick Newell and Jenny Maguire

Bottom:  Jordan Gelber and Jenny Maguire

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