![]() It would be tempting to go over the top with a voice that big, but Oyloe’s primary concern is delivering the words of the song. Oyloe has a bass voice which is resonant, mellifluous, and powerful without being basso profundo. Johnny Cash stops by next, and actor Peter Oyloe played the man in black on the national tour. Watching Gray is exhausting and exhilarating! ![]() He plays the keyboards with his fingers, his fists, his elbows, his fanny, his feet, all while crooning into a microphone on a stand between his legs. Jerry Lee performs his first number “A Real Wild Child,” and completely shows us why he was known as a “wild boy.” Taylor Issac Gray is Jerry, and Northern Stage marks his eighth time bringing the role to life, including two national tours. The second performer we meet is Jerry Lee Lewis, and the shakin’ begins the moment his fingers touch the piano keys. His guitar work is precise and smooth, and we see a young man who has known success but has also had to live with seeing Elvis Presley take “Blue Suede” to the mountaintop, performing it on the Ed Sullivan Show. Austin Hohnke portrays Carl, and while this is his first appearance at Northern Stage, it is his seventh time filling this role. The number went on to hit the top of the pop, blues, and country charts simultaneously, an historic first. That opening number is “Blue Suede Shoes,” written and performed by…Carl Perkins. Or as my oft-skeptical wife put it after the opening number: “They had me at hello!” For just about two hours, I was listening to an entire team of rock icons. The opportunity for kitsch is clear-who needs another Elvis or Johnny impersonator? But directors Carol Dunne and Kyle Brand and a highly talented cast give us embodiments instead. (Even on opening night, after just a few preview performances, several fingers on his right hand were wrapped in protective tape.Northern Stage’s final summer production in their outdoor theater is the jukebox musical “Million Dollar Quartet,” a carpet of delight gathering of Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash. ![]() Diminutive of stature but with the puffed chest, riotous coif and libidinous zeal of a bantam rooster, Aronson's Lewis is also a musical powerhouse, whose aggressive playing seems sure to break both his piano and his fingers by the end of the production's run. The production's standout is Gabriel Aronson as Lewis. There are 21 of them stuffed into a 100-minute, intermissionless running time, from the flash-bang of Lewis' "Real Wild Child" to the stirring a-capella harmonies of "Down By the Riverside" and "Peace in the Valley." Though necessary to fill in specifics about lives and careers that audiences will know only in general, they need to be dealt with expeditiously, as Barry does, to get to the real reason we're there, the songs. Jukebox musicals are often an excuse to trot out medleys and truncated versions of beloved tunes, some of which happens in "Million Dollar Quartet," but when the gang gets going, really tearing up the place, the production has the pulse-quickening, transporting thrill of a great concert.ĭirector and music director James Barry ably handles the script's many asides, flashbacks and biographical narratives, most delivered by Sun founder Sam Phillips (Ben Nordstrom). The show, co-authored by music historian Colin Escott and film producer Floyd Mutrux, is receiving a rousing production to open the 89th season of Berkshire Theatre Group. The actual events of that day and the songs they recorded aren't faithfully rendered in the jukebox musical they inspired, "Million Dollar Quartet," but this should matter little to most audiences.
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