Show overload

Thanks to some terrible planning on my part, I’ve been spending my nights living at the theatre. Not that I’m complaining - well, maybe a little since I’m dragging my ass to work every morning - but I saw Memphis, Brighton Beach Memoirs and Imelda on consecutive evenings Sunday through Tuesday of this week. I bought the BBM tickets weeks ago so had forgotten about them when I purchased the Memphis tickets. And as a closet blond (ask the cast of my first summer stock experience at the Theatre Barn in - gasp! - 1995 about that), I was planning to see Imelda next week until I realized that it closes this Sunday. Oops (“’Cause I’m a blond, yeah, yeah, yeah” - Earth Girls Are Easy, 1988 - anyone? Anyone?). So that left me with this week’s theatre triple play.

Despite a thin, cliché-ridden book, I found myself unexpectedly moved by this sentimental 50’s flashback. My hunch is that perhaps under less capable performers (full disclosure - Montego Glover is a casual acquaintance of mine) this show would be DOA. It’s amazing how excellent casting coupled with slick direction, production design and choreography can elevate less than stellar material. Not that the show doesn’t have its inspired moments. The first act is actually extremely tight and the storytelling streamlined. The emotional climax even evinced a smattering of audience sniffles at intermission. Act two is a different story. Often plodding and padded with extraneous (though entertaining) show-within-a-show musical numbers, the story meanders into Dreamgirls retread. I don’t necessarily think the story needs a “happy” ending, but the closing confrontation scene and concert feel anti-climactic.

Montego sounds amazing and belts inhumanly high. How she gets through eight shows a week is beyond me. Chad Kimball commits to the seedy side of Huey Calhoun, a flawed hick, creating what may best be described as a loveable asshole. Memphis isn’t quite up to the level of Dreamgirls or Hairspray, but the cast and production (almost) make up for its flaws.

The score is mainly solid, with the typical hook heavy power ballads in which pop songwriter David Bryan (of Bon Jovi) excels. The character driven songs are markedly weaker than the “radio” songs (“My Sister” being particularly cringe-worthy), but overall head-and-shoulders above the massively overrated Billy Elliott score.

Brighton Beach Memoirs is the polar opposite of Memphis. It’s a play about a working class Jewish family trying to get by in the wake of the Great Depression. Having never seen this particular Simon play onstage, I was sort of expecting a rapid-fire joke fest. Instead, I was treated to an emotionally nuanced coming of age drama. It’s worth the ticket price just to eavesdrop on sisters Kate (Laurie Metcalf) and Blanche (Jessica Hecht) when their claustrophobic living conditions finally induce an explosive act two confrontation. Who doesn’t love a resentment-filled domestic squabble?

The ensemble cast is uniformly excellent, with Metcalf a standout as put upon matriarch. Her mama epitomizes familial guilt. Maybe that’s I why I found the play so appealing. No matter your ethnicity, everyone can relate to family dysfunction and guilt.

Ever further from Memphis is Imelda: A New Musical. This tuner about the shoe-hoarding Eva Peron of the Philippines has good intentions but is wildly uneven. The director can’t seem to decide on the tone of the piece. Is it high camp? Historical drama? Moody rock opera? Within the span of 20 minutes we get a bit of each. Much of the problem lies with the storytelling. In an attempt to include every minute detail of the first lady’s life, they dilute the story to a series of “first she did this, then she did this, and then she did this” vignettes. In fact, the book and score (with its sometimes purposeless repeating of choruses to little dramatic effect) could benefit from an intelligent edit.

As for the score, it’s adequate but lacks character driven songs. Only two make a real impact, the very funny second act, “Imeldific,” and the biting, “Martial Law with A Smile.” The sarcasm and social commentary eschewed in these two numbers (but lacking in most of the score) prevents the show from rising above a mere history book lesson. The show is mired in facts rather than taking a strong viewpoint.

The book is much more successful at dramatizing the action. But there’s no seamless transition between scene and song and thus any dramatic momentum is immediately deflated once the music begins. It’s almost as if the book writer handed the script over to the composer with “[insert song here]” directions.

Jaygee Macapugay (again, full disclosure - she’s a very good friend of mine) successfully portrays Imelda’s arc from ambitious youth to manipulative woman. She’s also equally comfortable navigating between the comedic and dramatic elements of the book and score. I only wish she could sink her teeth into meatier material. Filling out the quartet of lead characters - where’s the quartet for the lead characters, by the way? - Liz Casasola (Corazon), Brian Jose (Ninoy) and Mel Sagrado Maghuyop (Marcos) all have their moments and fully commit to the uneven material they’re provided. There is a unique, universal story (probably several) lurking in this muddy treatment.

After the show, I kept fantasizing what Sondheim, Guettel, Tesori or even Jason Robert Brown might have been able to siphon from the same material. I guess I can dream.