Monday, May 11, 2009

All Shook Up

A friend of youngest daughter was in the play and invited her to come see it. Turned out she knew several people in the play, and I knew a few people in the orchestra pit.

The musical was a vehicle for a number of Elvis songs, involving a motorcycle musician coming to a 50's town whose mayor was on a tear about public morality; involving interracial dating and marriage, love quadrangles, and so forth. The drums and brass were too loud for the small venue, but the performances went off well. The dumpy nerd becoming the "bad boy's" sidekick worked nicely.

By intermission I was starting to feel a little creeped-out--well before the gratuitous subtext equivalencing homosexual with interracial marriage. Just about every relationship focussed on romantic love (usually puppy love type), every conflict looked to be resolved by romantic love one way or another, and there was only the vaguest hint that romantic love might not be enough to deal with struggles down the road. Romance was magic, and there was no sense of tomorrow, or raising children, or adventure. It wouldn't have been hard to add them; but I guess there weren't songs available. Kentucky Rain wouldn't quite fit the story line either--though maybe the authors should have tried.

To be accurate, Natalie makes a non-standard decision at the end, but I'm talking of the broad sweep of the show.

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