My main problem with MEMPHIS... (warning: some spoilers)

[Theaterfan555]

My main problem with MEMPHIS... (warning: some spoilers)#1

Posted: 10/13/09 at 8:28pm

For a 'historical' piece, doesn't this play seem to get history wrong, or just ignore it? For heaven's sakes, it's a show about the start of rock & roll, about white people coopting the 'black' sound, and it's set in the 1950s South -- and it NEVER mentions either Martin Luther King or Elvis Presley? WTF?!

Also, a TV show with a black cast airs in the South but they want to change to an all-white cast to take it national???? (In real life, didn't some Southern stations refuse to carry Nat King Cole's nationwide show?)

And since when did mainstream music producers in the early days of rock & roll seek out black women to promote? They sought out white people -- usually men -- who sang black-influenced music. Women rockers didn't start breaking thru until the '70s, around when Janis Joplin hit it big; before then, it was girl groups (white) or Motown (black). It's just so stupid that the music exec picks a black woman to cash in on the new rock & roll craze.

Even the obligatory redneck attack scene: generally, the KKK types who went around beating people up went after blacks, not whites they disagreed with. And they would have done far worse to her than what happens in the play.

This is the worst thing in the show -- well, the book in general. But specifically, that it's a show about a very particular moment/place in time that doesn't depict that era accurately.

[Scarywarhol]

re: My main problem with MEMPHIS... (warning: some spoilers)#2

Posted: 10/13/09 at 8:32pm

Another problem with the show is that it sucks.

But I agree with all of your more eloquently put points.
Updated On: 10/13/09 at 08:32 PM

[Mr Roxy]

re: My main problem with MEMPHIS... (warning: some spoilers)#2

Posted: 10/13/09 at 9:36pm

Most respectfully disagree as we loved it.

Poster Emeritus

[HometownGlory]

re: My main problem with MEMPHIS... (warning: some spoilers)#3

Posted: 10/13/09 at 9:41pm

Very nicely put, Theaterfan. I like almost all shows - Little Mermaid and the Grease revival being two glaring exceptions - so I was expecting to come away from this show with a few positive things. Whoops. I wasn't expecting the main character, Huey, to apparently be modeled on Quasimodo. After that good first number, I thought the choreography would be fun, but it was the same thing every number. Just disappointment after disappointment with this show.

[Soliantu]

re: My main problem with MEMPHIS... (warning: some spoilers)#4

Posted: 10/14/09 at 1:39am

"Another problem with the show is that it sucks.

But I agree with all of your more eloquently put points."

LOL, I literally laughed out loud to that, I've yet to see it, so I can judge it yet, but I appreciate the humor in that response.

[once a month]

re: My main problem with MEMPHIS... (warning: some spoilers)#5

Posted: 10/14/09 at 10:48am

Even with discounted tickets available, I just can't get past the commercial. I can't comprehend how that ad will sell tickets.

[Testing1232]

re: My main problem with MEMPHIS... (warning: some spoilers)#6

Posted: 10/14/09 at 12:32pm

<< Most respectfully disagree as we loved it. <<

You actually gave it a 10 out of 10 if I recall correctly--- so, basically calling it perfection.

WOW !!! The show is a disaster-

Book is beyond bad, and Kimball is giving one of the most annoying performances in decades.

[iWannaBEaSedaris]

re: My main problem with MEMPHIS... (warning: some spoilers)#7

Posted: 10/14/09 at 6:10pm

I have to say that I strongly agree with the original post. The story, in the context of the historical south, is ludicrous. The only mention that I caught in the show of current events was Rosa Parks...

[Sleeper2]

re: My main problem with MEMPHIS... (warning: some spoilers)#8

Posted: 10/14/09 at 10:44pm

wow -- great post, Theaterfan. And, that's just the beginning of the anachronistic weirdness of the show. What about the strange scene with the effeminate fat disc jockey who talks about cuddling with his wife and then loses his job to Chad Kimball? Was that meant to be a veiled reference to closeted gay men in the South -- or just a case of really bad acting and casting???

[perfectlymarvelous]

re: My main problem with MEMPHIS... (warning: some spoilers)#9

Posted: 10/17/09 at 1:24am

I completely agree with the original post as well...the glaring lack of historical context really bothered me.