Theater review: The Black Rep’s engaging musical Memphis makes all the right moves

Kansas City’s still-new Black Repertory Theatre closes its second season with a visit to Memphis — a bluesy, humor-filled, rock-and-roll-infused musical that won four Tony awards in 2010, including for best musical, best book of a musical, and best original score. 

Directed here by Damron Russel Armstrong (who is also BRT’s artistic director), Memphis is a smooth-running production that flows in sync with the musical score’s rhythm. Scene shifts keep stride with the storyline’s feel-good vibe that also straddles darker undertones.  

It’s late 1940s-early ’50s Memphis. “Black music” hasn’t been heard by much of white America and hasn’t been appropriated, yet, by rock and roll. Memphis (music and lyrics by keyboardist and songwriter David Bryan, book and lyrics by playwright Joe DiPietro) is a fictional take on the once well-known white Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips, who, at that time, moved from a five-and-dime record-department job to a slot on a groundbreaking radio program to, later, a Dick Clark-style TV show that, in its makeup, was also trendsetting (think Hairspray).

He was in the middle of Memphis’ music scene or, as Memphis’ Huey Calhoun (Patrick Lewallen) puts it, at the very center of the radio dial. At least for a time. And this joyful, sometimes touching, sometimes serious show looks into that window of fleeting fame, about a decade, when the ambitious ne’er-do-well is in the midst — perhaps part of the impetus — of a musical transformation.

Huey doesn’t exist there alone. Pulled by the music into a black club, he meets the talented, young, aspiring black singer and future love interest Felicia Farrell (Briana Renee Woods) and her protective brother, club owner Delray (Armstrong). Huey becomes impassioned about the sound. And he gets fired for playing it at the store where he works. Through force of will and strength of personality, he lands at a white radio station, where he breaks barriers (racial and otherwise) by playing the seemingly strange but popular songs. Let the listeners know you’re white, the station owner (Marshall Rimann) tells him. Huey doesn’t care about — or refuses to see — the racial separations so strictly observed in this Southern city.

While bringing out the ugliness and dangers of racial prejudice, Memphis is foremost about Huey and the music, in that time and place, and people’s shared love of it (“The Music of My Soul”). The show’s opening dance number, with full ensemble in fine vocal form, sets the pace, the actors’ fluid movements incorporating time-capsule-based routines (toe-tapping choreography by Christopher Barksdale-Burns). 

At the center of the goings-on is the talented and dynamic Lewallen, whose flawed Huey — stubbornly blind to race and its obstacles, perhaps a bit selfish — is in love with Felicia. Emitting a subtle Josh Gad quality and oozing a distinctive, roundabout drawl, Lewallen is magnetic (“Hello, My Name Is Huey”), drawing our attention wherever he moves on the stage. His strong co-star is the charming and lively Woods, whose Felicia loves him back but wants to succeed in her career. Her voice, in the higher register, settles into the score as the show progresses, and her “Colored Woman” is one of the standouts of Act 1. Both performers contribute nuance and depth as well to their portrayals. 

According to the show’s program, Armstrong was not originally cast in this production, but he’s excellent — not only directing but also in the role of Delray, who, out of concern for his sister in the Jim Crow South, takes a dislike to Huey (“She’s My Sister”). In supporting roles as Delray’s friends are the very good Douglass Walker, as Bobby (“Big Love”), and Brad Shaw, as Gator (“Say a Prayer”). 

The stellar nine-piece band (Julian Goff, musical director and drums) accompanies the large 20-member cast and chorus, which maneuver the stage’s confines with ease and visual variation. Armstrong makes full use of the square footage, adding dimension to the sparse, simple set with a band-shielding scrim and an upstage riser for background scenes. The music’s volume competes a couple of times with the players, but their strong voices rise to the occasion. 

It’s a big show for a smallish startup, but Armstrong and company impart a lasting impression — with memorable performances and a feeling that lingers — in a skillfully rendered and buoyant Memphis.

♦

Memphis

Through June 24, at the Black Repertory Theatre of KC, Penn Valley Theatre (Science and Technology Building), 3201 Southwest Trafficway, brtkc.org