This month, Chapel off Chapel and StageArt brings you Tony award winning MEMPHIS – The Musical. The original Broadway musical by David Bryan (Bon Jovi’s guitarist) and Joe DiPietro is loosely based on the story of Memphis disc jockey, Dewey Phillips. The StageArt musical, directed by Dean Drieberg (The Colour Purple, Saturday Night Fever and Dream Girls), sees white radio DJ Huey Calhoun (played by the seriously impressive James Elmer) determined to share his love of African-American music by bringing it to a mainstream audience. There’s just one problem – it’s the 1950s where racial tension is high and black music is just not played on the radio.
Calhoun finds himself in the middle of an underground black rock ‘n’ roll bar one night where he stumbles across a woman named Felica (Elandrah Eramiha-Feo), an attractive, talented and ambitious African-American woman. The musical follows the story of the two as they fall in love and Calhoun breaks the norm by playing black music to the city of Memphis. The pair not only has to deal with the disapproving eyes of society, but of their only family as well. Although the music, singing and dancing – thanks to musical director, Nathan Firmin and choreographer, Kirra Sibel – throughout is outstanding, MEMPHIS, disappointingly, only touches the surface of the racial issues of the time when it had the opportunity to delve into a topic that is still affecting society today.
Elmer (ABC 3 and MTV host) is captivating and stars as main character Huey Calhoun.
Although the ending leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, MEMPHIS is worth seeing for the performance of Elmer alone.
Chapel off Chapel, until 28 October, 7.30pm Wed- Sun, 1.30pm Sat & Sun.
Image credits: Jayde Justin
