Elvis Presley’s iconic ditty “Blue Suede Shoes” has become a definitive version of the rock and roll standard. But in 1955, one year prior to the song burning up the charts, it was Carl Perkins’ version of the iconic rockabilly tune that was introduced to the masses.
While Perkins was a massive talent, he was not a 21-year-old Elvis Presley-level talent. This was Elvis ready to lean into his anti-establishment powers as a certified young stud, years before a series of bad career movies, a never-ending Las Vegas residency and an addiction to opiates that contributed to his death at 42.
In San Jose Stage’s production of the rockabilly jukebox play with music “Million Dollar Quartet,” Presley (Cody Craven) is one of four rock and roll pillars who are young and hungry, using the legendary Sun Records studio in Memphis to launch into infinite fame. Others in the mix include Perkins (Tarif Pappu), Johnny Cash (Bryant Cobb) and Jerry Lee Lewis (Nick Kenbrandt).
The show functions mostly as a lightly plotted showcase of some gargantuan music talents, with head-bopping the proper audience movement of the day. The conflicts of the play, written by Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux, are both large and easily dismissed in the script, despite the world ramifications that impacted the course of rock and roll history.
The story is a dramatization of an actual occurrence, when a chance jam session in December of 1956 gathered the musicians together. Lewis was the latest find of Sun Records founder Sam Phillips (Teddy Spencer), and was in the studio to work out some songs with him and Perkins. But in walks Cash, who has business to discuss with Phillips, followed by ascendant superstar Presley and girlfriend Dyanne (Ashley Garlick).
Randall King’s direction is self-assured, staging that needs to lean heavily towards letting these four masterful chefs cook, providing a smorgasbord of the quad’s most famed hits. While there are tricky moments with varying degrees of success from the impersonation department, the production smartly serves in deference to the well-known hits.
There are sly winks to some of the more problematic aspects of this era, namely the blatant effort to bring music by Black artists to White artists, making it more palatable to the parents of White kids. A few small pictures that adorn the walls of Robert Pickering’s scenic design are a reminder that The King of Rock and Roll was built on the backs of Little Richard and Big Mama Thornton.
Some of the show and its dialogue, written in 2006, feels dated. There are a few too many times when the characters retreat into fake humility, acting as if they just really can’t sing right now, because, well gee whiz. But seconds later, the relenting turns into an all-out shredding of yet another masterful tune.
The one person who has the heavy lifting on the acting side is Spencer as Sam Phillips, having to oscillate into multiple realities, doing them all with the correct intentions in each moment. There is joy in having all of his “boys” together, clearly knowing what the moment will mean in the storied history of the genre. But the gathering is not purely for these purposes. Inside the predatory world of music production, the RCA Victors of the world are always ready to swallow up the smaller Sun Records with big money and bigger promises.
Each of the cast is given an opportunity to remind the audience what it means to let a big dog eat. Cobb’s delivery on “Folsom Prison Blues” is smooth and velvety, while Pappu’s musicianship as the more forgotten Perkins pairs well with his processing of the many sleights that he faced.
While Garlick’s Dyanne brings forth a great texture inside her radiant stage presence, killing on the sultry number “Fever,” it’s the high-octane turns from both Craven and Kenbrandt that shake the old seats at The Stage.
Craven’s transition from a slower-tempo movement in “That’s Alright Mama” into the version well known today is a dazzler, while the bench and piano are just levels for Kenbrandt to pounce all over in one of the show’s great highlights, Lewis’ opus in “Great Balls of Fire.” The more subtle performers, drummer Troy Herner Brown and upright bass man Daniel Murguia add in some mighty fine texture.
While “Million Dollar Quartet” may not be the most perfect play with music, it is a reminder of the momentous magic that happened just before Elvis and his friends left the building.
David John Chávez is chair of the American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association and a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (‘22-‘23); @davidjchavez.bsky.social.
‘MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET’
By Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux, presented by San Jose Stage Company
Through: Dec. 14
Where: San Jose Stage, 490 S. 1st St., San Jose
Running time: 100 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $49-$74; thestage.org