‘All Shook Up’ at Playhouse has talented, energetic cast

By Milan Paurich

[Editor’s note: This review was inadvertently omitted from some papers on Sunday.]

YOUNGSTOWN — The most surprising thing about “All Shook Up,” the 2005 jukebox musical that opened Friday night to a packed house at the Youngstown Playhouse, is how unexpectedly sturdy the Joe DiPietro book is. “Shook Up,” which uses the Elvis Presley songbook as its raison d’ ™tre, lasted only six months on Broadway but has since become a touring and regional- theater sensation.

No wonder. Though a college frat house could build a successful drinking game out of identifying the myriad works DiPietro pilfers — er, references, in his script — “Footloose,” “Grease,” “Hairspray,” “Cry Baby,” Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” ad infinitum — it’s the clever way he scrambles all those disparate sources together that makes “Shook Up” such a certifiable hoot. If, as New York Times drama critic Ben Brantley complained in his original review, “everything in this production is a quotation of a quotation of a quotation of, in some cases, yet another quotation,” that doesn’t diminish the show’s fun factor.

And that’s something conspicuously absent from too many contemporary musicals.

Set in a “so small, you-never-heard-of-it” town somewhere in the Midwest during the summer of 1955, “All Shook Up” has the sort of elemental plot that could have served as the basis for an actual ’50s Elvis movie. Roustabout Chad (Andrew Leah) blows into town one day to repair his motorcycle (it’s making a “jiggly-wiggly noise”), and sticks around just long enough to throw everyone’s neatly compartmentalized lives into a veritable tizzy.

The fact that this sleepy little burg’s mayor (Susan Prosser) has enacted a “Mamie Eisenhower Decency Act” forbidding public dancing or even displays of affection (no smooching or hand-holding allowed) only makes “hunka-hunka” Chad seem even more exotic to the local populace. Natalie (Rachel Rossi), the apprentice mechanic working on Chad’s bike, is instantly smitten with this blue-suede-shoes-wearing dreamboat. But since grease monkey Natalie ain’t nothin’ but a tomboy, Chad has eyes only for foxy Sandra (Stacy Coffee Keenan), the Amazonian blonde who runs the local museum. (What a museum is doing in a podunk town like this in the first place remains one of the show’s many unanswered questions.) Of course, Natalie’s unrequited love for Chad blinds her to the fact that best friend/science nerd Dennis (Jason Green) is not-so-secretly pining for her.

And that’s just the tip of the “Peyton Place”-style romantic permutations Chad triggers during his 24-hour visit.

There’s black honky-tonk proprietress Sylvia (the divine Carla Gipson) who’s sweet on Natalie’s (conveniently) widowed pop (Tom O’Donnell in a nicely understated performance); Sylvia’s precocious teen daughter Lorraine (Boardman High School senior Monet Perry in a knockout Playhouse debut) who makes a love connection with the mayor’s son Dean (Zach O’Conner); Sheriff Earl (Ken Stiver) who silently carries a torch for the repressed mayor; and Ed (also played by Rossi), a good ole boy who breaks nearly as many hearts as Chad himself.

Strikingly designed and handsomely costumed (by Playhouse MVPs Jim Lybarger and Cherie Stebner respectively), “All Shook Up” is somewhat hobbled by the tentative singing of most of the cast. Too many songs are nearly drowned out by Gary Kekel’s otherwise sterling musical accompaniment. As a result, only a few numbers achieve the buoyancy needed to propel the story from Points A to B. (That can be a real problem in jukebox musicals where the tunes largely comprise the jerry-built narrative.) Ironically, the two most impressive vocal performances are of lesser known Elvis songs (Gipson’s lilting “There’s Always Me” and Green’s tender “It Hurts Me”), both in Act Two.

Aided by Nicole Caravella’s energetic choreography, director Mary Ruth Lynn does a nice job of sustaining a brisk pace throughout. Despite evincing somewhat wobbly vocal chops, the fresh-faced young cast has talent to burn.

Leah and Rossi are better actors than singers; Green is a comic standout; and Perry and O’Conner make an adorable pair of star-crossed lovers. Also very good are the dependably fine Gipson, Prosser and O’Donnell.

In fact, it’s Prosser who shows the young ’uns how it’s done. Although she might not have a classical musical theater voice, Prosser belts out “Devil in Disguise” with total confidence and effortless conviction. After all, jukebox musicals are no place for shrinking violets.

X“All Shook Up” runs through Oct. 11 at the Youngstown Playhouse. For tickets or additional information, call (330) 788-8739.