Stage West Calgary

“All Shook Up”

A Review

The Friday Morning “Somebody-Asked-Me-To, So-Here-I-Go” Review:

“All Shook Up” at Stage West Calgary

As a lifelong Elvis fan, I will confess to anticipating this latest production at Calgary’s Stage West Theatre. Although, knowing a bit about the history of the original production, and subsequent other Elvis musicals, I went in with some amount of trepidation.

I expand more on that thought in my official Calgary Herald review (which I’ll post a link to here tomorrow, once it is available online) – but for now, I can honestly say that as a jukebox musical, it’s no match for past productions like “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story”, “Motown Gold”, or “British Invasion”. But I’d still recommend getting out to see it – the collective positives outweigh the niggly complaints…

Niggly complaints? A bit of an uninspired, dull set for one. And a cardboard motorcycle that got a few audible chuckles from surrounding tables may have been an idea that should have been given more consideration.

The original Joe DiPietro play itself wasn’t exactly warmly received, closing mere months after opening on Broadway. Re-inventing Elvis songs is risky at the best of times, and only a handful of artists have succeeded in the past. Despite marvellous interpretations for “Viva Elvis”, Cirque du Soleil’s soundtrack for their year-old Vegas show is already available at deep discounts online and in stores.

That’s the complaint file though. The positives are in the casting, with a strong lead in Nicholas Fera Marinucci playing Chad, the Elvis-esque character that the story revolves around. As the play demands, he sounds nothing like Elvis, and only barely resembles him. But his vocals and presence allow for the audience to buy into a Broadway version of Presley and his songbook for the purposes of this story.

Marinucci is aided by a talented cast, too many to single out, but let’s try:

Marisa McIntyre & Jayme Armstrong - both former competitors on CBC TV’s “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?”

Nadine Roden – Wow. Big vocals from this lady!

Daniel Greenburg – Quite a set of pipes on this gentleman…

Sheldon Bergstrom – the old showbiz maxim about not working with kids and animals has nothing on this guy. Give him one line, and he’ll steal the show, like he did in the recent production of “The Producers”. And that’s just as an actor – does this guy have an album out??

I could go on – there are loads of great performances, given the songbook of hits and lesser-known Elvis songs the cast performs. Some of them work, some are clearly shoe-horned in, and a couple, like the Act One closer “Can’t Help Falling In Love” are what this show needed more of to survive the scrutiny of Broadway audiences.

Hearing “It Hurts Me” reminded me of what a potentially timeless song that was, even though Elvis only enjoyed moderate success back when it was first released. Canadian crooner Michael Buble could probably re-tool that into one heck of a hit. Does anyone out there happen to have David Foster’s e-mail address??

My official review of “All Shook Up” is scheduled to appear in The Calgary Herald tomorrow, so I’ll post a link here when that is available.

Later this afternoon, I’m interviewing the star, Nicholas Fera Marinucci, and I will endeavour to coordinate the audio interview with the Herald link.

At least, that’s the plan!

(A Reminder: Charlie will be bumped to Sunday morning…)

Chow for now