MANILA, Philippines?When my US-based niece Joanne recently told me to keep Tuesday night open because her husband, Shawn, had bought her mom and me tickets to ?All Shook Up,? a dinner-theater presentation in Kansas City, I was happy?but of course! Theater fare was what I missed while visiting Peru and Brasil (as natives prefer to spell the name of their country). If I had gone to Las Vegas, I?m sure I would have caught a show or two.
In Cusco, a dance-theater presentation was to be performed?the night after my departure. And alas, I couldn?t afford the very expensive Rio presentation! Naturally, I was delighted with ?All Shook Up,? a musical about a Trip to Jerusalem-type series of aborted romances, where enamored persons fall in love with the wrong characters. Indeed, they?re all shook up until the happy ending comes, when they?re properly matched with one another!
Reason for being
Obviously, the musical?s reason for being is to string together Elvis Presley?s hits and awaken nostalgia among senior citizens. That large audience remembers the wild days when they were enamored with Elvis the Pelvis, whose music and body gyrations broke down musical, social and cultural barriers, freeing their generation from the tight corsets, suffocating practices, and strict morality of past generations.
?All Shook Up? follows the same line of the oh-so-successful ?Mamma Mia,? and aims for the same profitable results. The story is squeaky clean. However, the director of the Kansas production smartly alters lines for regional consumption.
For example, a character declares, ?This is so boring, I feel like I?m in Topeka,? while another enthuses, ?In Kansas, you aren?t allowed to be happy!? Both asides brought the house down.
On a more serious level, Jose Pietro?s script tackles interracial relationships. The story takes place in the late ?50s, when such matters were still a sensitive issue. Today, the material seems rather dated and lacks real conflict, but its treatment must have made most of the people in the audience wonder why it was such an issue way back then.
Nevertheless, the cast members perform with gusto. They manifestly relish singing familiar Presley hits in different rhythms. The musical arranger-director likewise intersperses unfamiliar Elvis numbers to enrich admiration for the King of Rock ?n Roll, who recorded 800 songs and starred in 30 movies?which is a lot by any standard!
Initiative
The lead actor is an Elvis-type roustabout who, being an avowed lover of life, stimulates laidback lovers to take the initiative and point their arrows directly at their precise targets. Although they do it with hesitation in the beginning, they?re awakened in time?no longer all shook up?and everyone onstage is happy! And the audience is just as delighted that all?s well that ends well.
A vital character in the musical is the puritanical lady mayor, who arrests anyone singing, dancing or simply relishing the pleasures of life! She smothers her nerdy son with feelings of guilt. Ironically, he falls in love with an African-American and becomes his own man.
