Review: Memphis at the Majestic

  It was something of a surprise when the unpretentious Memphis beat out both the indy-rock spectacle American Idiot and the afrobeat fantasia Fela! for the 2010 Tony Award for Best Musical: the latter two musicals had generated a lot more buzz (if not box-office receipts) than this modest, earnest, and generally enjoyable tale of one city—and two races. But if Memphis somewhat pales besides other American musical explorations of race and rock—both Hairspray and Dreamgirls spring to mind—the current touring production presents the material to good advantage. Memphis is the sort of show worth seeing once, but not twice; like Oakland, there’s not quite enough there, there. The book and lyrics (by Joe DiPietro, of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change fame) and music (by David Bryan, keyboardist of the band Bon Jovi) are clearly indebted to the times, tunes, and threads of Memphis in the 1950s, a city far more inspirational than, say, Indianapolis. The plot follows the struggles of eccentric Tennessean Huey Calhoun (Bryan Fenkart), a white disk jockey committed to spinning the music of local black musicians who have been unfairly banned from the airwaves. After a series of serio-comic reversals, Huey finds himself an […]