Cafe Society

This past weekend, an orchestra musicians’ strike in New York City shut down every Broadway musical except Cabaret, killing business at surrounding restaurants and bars and devastating thousands of theatergoers who, months earlier, had booked tickets to Lion King or Hairspray. Those with foresight might have salved their woes by jetting to Kansas City for the Broadway-caliber production of Smokey Joe’s Cafe, which is wowing audiences at the American Heartland Theatre.

Weaving the songs of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller through a prism of wispy gender politics that’s never preachy or pushy, Smokey Joe’s Cafe has all the earmarks of a musical revue that could have been so much less — such as an encyclopedic game of “They wrote this, and then they wrote that.” But there’s nothing academic about this production. Cindy Layton’s direction seems electrically charged, while Kristin Lewis Gorman’s choreography is consistently inventive (Gorman also appears in the show).

Leiber and Stoller began their composing career with the score to Elvis Presley’s movie Jailhouse Rock, then rolled in the royalties (up to and beyond their 1987 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame). They were amazingly versatile, dipping into different musical styles for such songs as “Hound Dog,” “Stand By Me,” and “Kansas City.” The beauty of Smokey Joe is that almost forty of the duo’s songs are performed without one jarring transition — or anything to make audience members regret that they’re not hearing the originals.

The show avoids feeling like a cobwebby oldies’ machine, staying peppy thanks to its mix of solo turns, duets and ensemble numbers. Many of the numbers (each one a minimusical of its own) amiably pit the women against the men in ways that constantly surprise — such as when “Yakety Yak” becomes part of a lovers’ spat or “Poison Ivy” turns into a warning about women’s wiles. At Act One’s rousing finale, “Saved” transforms itself from a song about giving up drink and debauchery to a gospel anthem that would make the most heedless partyers change their wicked ways.

The large and amply talented cast includes Brent D. Kuenning, Antuan Raimone, Keith A. Bearden and Darryl E. Calmese Jr. as the guys, and Gorman, Victoria Barbee, Ursula Lawson and Lori Blalock as the dolls. At a recent preview, Terrence Charles Rodgers, who had been under the weather, performed some of his numbers while Seth Golay and Teddey Brown split the rest of his duties. If a couple of the singers push a little too hard, that never detracts from the exhilarating whole. On the bandstand are musical director Anthony Edwards, Harold Steinhardt, Tod Barnard, Steven Lenhert and Curtis Oberle.

Gary Wichansky’s Constructivist set — subtly imprinted with 45s — is monolithic but not overwhelming, and Shane Rowse’s lighting is playfully eclectic. Mary Traylor’s costumes range from glitz and glamour to Laugh-In loony, especially in “Jailhouse Rock,” where the cast dons a collection of ’60s kitsch branded with convict stripes (and the prison warden pulls a half- Monty).

The show is sexy without being tawdry or PG-13, and inoffensively rock-and-rollish. If drugs are missing from the equation, it’s because anything illegal has been undercut by the dealers in possession of all this adrenaline.
Postscript: Kansas City playwright Frank Higgins is relying on miracles to keep his words in front of American audiences. Miracles, Higgins’ new play, runs through March 16 at the Lawrence Community Theatre. It’s the tale of an autistic teen-ager’s poetry book and the debate about its credibility: Is the poet a savant or a fraud? The project began as a reading at the Missouri Rep and then went on to a full-blown production in New York City — which turned out to be less than miraculous.

“Miracles had a very tempestuous production in New York City last spring that wound up damaging the play,” Higgins says. “The actor in the male lead didn’t read for the role because his manager said that he was too big to audition. I’d never heard of him but later recognized him as one of the suspects in an episode of Law & Order. But she was willing to have him meet us for coffee. He talked in the most general terms about the role, and I guess I’d have toP say he gave good coffee-talk.”

But the actor became “a nightmare” after he was cast, Higgins says. “At the first rehearsal, he started lobbying to have the last ten minutes of the play completely rewritten. His whining and complaining and temper tantrums in rehearsal never stopped. By the second half of the run, he was walking through the performance so much that, at one performance, a couple of offended actors in the audience booed his curtain call. Not quite like theater in Kansas City.”

Higgins is having better luck with the locals. “In this Lawrence production, in a no-pressure atmosphere, I got a good sense of what new stuff worked [and] what could be cut,” he says.

The prolific author also has a play opening at the Fulton Opera House in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, next month. “It’s set in Kansas City in 1929 [and] deals with a woman who left Kansas City to become a silent movie star,” he says. “By the advent of the talkies, she has returned home to find her first flame on the verge of great things of his own.”

For information on Miracles at the Lawrence Community Theatre, call 785-843-7469.