Pittsburgh CLO Million Dollar Quartet Reviews
Pittsburgh CLO has shaken up summer with a lineup that includes new additions to its 71-year roster: “Newsies,” “Mamma Mia!” and now, “Million Dollar Quartet.” The season finale shakes, rattles and rolls the Benedum Center, Downtown, and transports us back to a day the music thrived.
“Million Dollar Quartet” is a cross between a jukebox musical and an oldies concert with a spot-on cover band. It follows the “Jersey Boys” formula of a fact-based story punctuated by performances and matches an idealized songlist to a 1950s dream team — Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash.
What sets the show apart is that the singer-actors play their own instruments, and Pittsburgh CLO has chosen a quartet that looks and sounds like a million bucks.
The show transports us back to Dec. 4, 1956, a milestone in rock ’n’ roll. On that day, newly minted Hollywood star Elvis Presley, 21, returned to his Memphis roots and walked into Sun Records for a one-time-only jam session with Perkins, Lewis and Cash. They had gathered at Sun Records, where each rose to fame, and the result was recorded for posterity. A singular photograph of the foursome survives as evidence of that momentous day.
The musical, conceived, co-written and directed for Broadway by Floyd Mutrux (”Urban Cowboy”; “American Hot Wax”) fictionalizes the goings-on and features chart-topping hits, gospel standards and covers of songs such as “Long Tall Sally” and “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man,” both by African-American artists who were among the earliest rock ’n’ roll pioneers.
In the Pittsburgh CLO production, show veteran Christopher Ryan Grant plays Sun’s affable patriarch, Sam Phillips, the recording ringmaster with a Midas touch for nurturing talent. From his tiny Memphis studio, he launched the Million Dollar Quartet, only to sell off Elvis’ contract to pay the company’s debts and see Perkins and Cash abandon ship.
“Million Dollar Quartet” fictionalizes the jam session as the day it all went down — the end of an era for Sun and the beginning of a new one, with up-and-comers such as Jerry Lee Lewis. There’s a whole lotta shakin’, with Phillips sure he can re-sign Cash, and Perkins seething at Elvis for using his “Blue Suede Shoes” on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
One of the frustrations of the concept is it interrupts some musical numbers to continue the storytelling, when all we want to hear is Derek Keeling’s Johnny Cash or Martin Kaye’s version of “Great Balls of Fire.” Both actors were here with the “Million Dollar Quartet” national tour in 2011, and they are still at the top of their game.
Mr. Keeling can still thrill with his how-low-can-you-go vocal register, although the real Cash’s voice during the Sun era was more mellow than what you hear on classics such as “Folsom Prison Blues” or “I Walk the Line.”
Mr. Kaye attacks the piano as Jerry Lee Lewis, a role he has played in several U.S. and UK productions. Lewis is the audacious newcomer at Sun who rubs everyone the wrong way. His talent, however, is undeniable. In a Harpo Marx wig and with his leg beating like a drum, Mr. Kaye manages to seem out of control while dominating the keyboard in manic Killer style.
James Snyder also is a man in motion as Elvis Presley. The actor who smoldered for CLO last year in “South Pacific” captures Elvis vocally and with signature moves in numbers such as “That’s All Right Mama” and “Hound Dog.” Mr. Snyder’s Elvis has come home with the swagger of a star, including a sexy starlet (Zurin Villaneuva as the fictional Dyanne) on his arm, but he also is feeling adrift and vulnerable.
As Perkins, Pittsburgh CLO newcomer Billy Finn is the guitar ace of the group, going strings-to-keys in musical games of one-upmanship with Mr. Kaye’s Lewis. Justin Bendel as Carl’s brother Jay on bass and R.J. Heid on drums fill out the onstage band.
Director David Ruttera knows how to wrangle a show with actors playing their own instruments — he is the resident director for “School of Rock” on Broadway. With music director James Cunningham, he takes a naturalistic approach, so when someone picks up a guitar, it seems organic. With this group in a room, it takes very little cajoling to get the music going.
The photo of the real-life quartet plays a role near the end of the show, in a beautifully lit shot that could be the perfect closer — but not so fast. As in “Mamma Mia!” before it, “Million Dollar Quartet” has the guys trade their workaday duds for glitzy jackets and a miniconcert that allows the audience to get up and dance. Mr. Snyder gets one last chance to go full-on King of Rock, with windmill arms and rolling hips before — and this has to be said — Elvis has left the building.
Sharon Eberson: sberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Twitter: @SEberson_pg.
Imagine a room filled with four of the greatest rising stars of the music industry today. It's hard to think of only four standout artists, but on December 4, 1956 in a small auto shop-turned-recording studio, Sam Phillips, owner of Sun Records, found himself in the company of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash. Million Dollar Quartet chronicles this impromptu recording session with four of the hottest artists of the time, taking liberties and dramatizing the one act musical to make a plot of a single night worthy of a Broadway stage.
With the recording studio backdrop, a piano off to stage right, and three 1950s studio microphones arranged on stage, Jerry Lee Lewis (Martin Kaye) enters on piano, Carl Perkins (BILLY FINN) on electric guitar, and Johnny Cash (Derek Keeling) and Elvis Presley (James Snyder) on guitar begin assuming their roles as each come through to talk with Sam Phillips (Christopher Ryan Grant).
The casting for Million Dollar Quartet is something that must be done with great attention. Of the eight actors, four are near household names with a lot to live up to.
Mr. Keeling walks the line; Mr. Finn dances in his blue suede shoes; and Mr. Snyder is a brown eyed handsome man. Their looks, accents, movements, and idiosyncrasies needed to be impeccable, and no one captured this better than Mr. Kaye. He fits his well-written part perfectly, playing up every joke with the right amount of smartass-ness. He sends his electrifying energy through all his limbs, shaking and tapping his legs and playing the piano with amazing ease.
Dyanne (Zurin Villanueva), Elvis's girlfriend, is the only female role in the show, offering two solo numbers "Fever" and "I Hear You Knockin'". Although she made me sweat uncomfortably during her first number, her redemptive rendition of her second song left me with chills.
This show does not include a conventional pit orchestra. Each cast member picks up their own instrument to deliver the music wholly from singing to strumming. It is worthy of praise to see multifaceted artists making music together, just as the quartet did 60 years ago.
As mentioned earlier, the cast uses 1950s era microphones when singing, but when they are conversing with one another, traditional, modern stage microphones are used. At times, transitioning between microphones left some accidentally turned off longer than they should have been, but these minor technical issues did not impair the overall story. The tale itself is rather lackluster, but you shouldn't really be attending for a deep plot; come for the music, and leave dancing out of the aisles.
Million Dollar Quartet marks its debut at the Pittsburgh CLO as the company closes out its riveting summer season. What this show offers is a fun night, filled with dozens of classic hits sung by aptly casted actors. It doesn't matter if you were born of the generation that made these songs chart toppers or if you first heard these songs on a television commercial; the energy is palpable. As the dancing lady beside me told me, 'Unlike the songs today, you can understand every word.'
To see or not to see score: 6/9; Moderately Recommended Show
