Memphis

photo: Joan Marcus

A perfect litmus test for those who value sensation and production over substance in a Broadway musical, Memphis is an often thrillingly staged, excitingly choreographed gloss job on thin material. The 1950’s-set story – of the interracial romance between a porkpie hat-wearing disc jockey (Chad Kimball) and a Beale Street blues singer (Montego Glover) – is strictly by-the-numbers on the page: it traffics in music theatre cliches so well-worn you’ve already seen them spoofed on The Simpsons. The “N” word is spat out a few times, but besides that there’s not a lot of grit: the characters are superficially drawn, and the music lacks weight. There’s nothing surprising about the book, except for a surprisingly misjudged key moment in the second act that brings all belief in the story to a halt. All that said, the big production numbers in Memphis are dazzling thanks to inventive staging (by Christopher Ashley) and choreography (by Sergio Trujillo) that has all the flavor, personality and inspiration that the material lacks.