For all its knuckleheaded delight, the Elvis-spoofing musical
All Shook Up
has serious roots, not just in a jukebox but in Shakespeare. The juke part's not hard to figure; the show brims with more than 20 songs Presley sang.
As for Shakespeare, All Shook Up is modeled on his comedies: miscues, a disguised gender-changing character, and a big finish in the wedding chapel. Believe me, I'm not giving anything away: At the Media Theatre, where All Shook Up bursts onstage at 8 o'clock, you more or less know what's about to happen by, say, 8:12 - and that counts time for the off-with-your-cell-phones directive.
You can bad-mouth All Shook Up for being ludicrously sentimental or just plain dumb, but as the man sings, don't be cruel. The show, about a charismatic, hip-swiveling lady-killer who cycles into town by chance, is endlessly cute in the positive sense, and at Media, director Vincent Marini is keenly aware of its purpose: undiluted fun.
Even when All Shook Up registers poignant, it's just for a few seconds at a time, with quick laugh-line recoveries in Joe DiPietro's (I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change) script. Its characters are at the door of Heartbreak Hotel, but they never check in.
If anything, the Media cast gives the screwy script as thoughtful a reading as possible - a contrast to the national tour a few years back, where it was intentionally overacted. (To that end, the tour gave the title an exclamation point, which Media does not.) Either way, it's the same good fun, but Media's version provides a modicum of character development.
Here's the plot in a simple, storyboard paragraph: In 1955, an Elvis-type arrives in a Midwestern town where the battle-ax lady mayor prohibits such iniquities as public affection and tight pants. "What's the point of living?" our interloper declaims. He unlocks the town's repressed soul and everyone chases each other for love's sake.
If some of this sounds like Twelfth Night, well, no. But there's enough in there for an order of All Shook Up with a little Bard on the side. (The script even alludes to a sonnet.) "Love Me Tender," "One Night With You," "Jailhouse Rock" - the Elvis music figures in the plot.
The cast, fully up to Gregory Daniels' kinetic choreography and good-looking in Tina Marie Green-Heinze's blue suede shoes and '50s duds, is led by Nicholas Cobey - not quite baby-faced or pelvic-motored enough as the rocker, but compensating with slick side-of-the-mouth singing and pure charm.
He's surrounded by lovely, fine-voiced women - Amanda Lea LaVergne (the repressed love interest), Erin Mosher (the repressed museum curator), Chanta C. Layton (the sassy but repressed bar owner), Vera D. Chandler (her repressed daughter), and the repressed mayor, played by Lois Sach Binder.
And the guys - a widower (John Dewar), a good-boy son (Teddy Eck), a rocker wanna-be (Chris Faith), and the sheriff (John Shanken-Kaye) are all repre- well, you get it. And they get rid of it, which is what the fun's about.
All Shook Up
Through April 5 at the Media Theatre, 104 E. State St., Media. Tickets: $32.50-$42.50. Information: 610-891-0100
or www.mediatheatre.org. EndText