Smokey Joe’s Cafe
Words and Music by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller
Directed by Stephen Bourneuf
STAGES St. Louis
June 3, 2015
Cast of Smokey Joe’s Cafe
Photo by Peter Wochniak
STAGES St. Louis
There’s no denying that Smokey Joe’s Cafe, the opening production of STAGES’s 2015 season, is a crowd pleaser. It contains some great classic songs that are performed well, with some colorful costumes and polished production values, and the audience on opening night was appreciative. What is confusing, though, is exactly what else it is. It’s not a musical, and it would even be generous to call it a revue. For all intents and purposes, it’s a staged concert. It’s a well-done staged concert, though, and it’s certainly entertaining.
Smokey Joe’s Cafe is essentially a showcase for the songs of Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, who wrote many popular hits of the 50s, 60s and 70s, including “On Broadway’, “I’m a Woman”, “Stand By Me” and “Jailhouse Rock”. The nine performers (Josh A. Dawson, Kent Overshown, J. Nycole Ralph, Richard Crandle, Keisha Gilles, Emily Afton, Bronwyn Tarboton, Brent Michael Diroma, and Jason Samuel) sing the songs in various settings, taking turns with featured solos. The set, designed by James Wolk, is colorful but fairly basic, changing around a little bit to suggest a neighborhood street, a cafe, etc. There are also extremely colorful, well-appointed costumes by Brad Musgrove that augment the various song settings and add to the overall atmosphere of the show.
I have to admit I don’t “get” shows like this, really. This strikes me as something of an extended theme park show, no matter how well-produced it is, and at STAGES, it is well-produced, with a very good cast. The songs are great, of course, but there’s no story or even really much of a theme. The performers are given names for their characters, but that doesn’t really matter because they’re never mentioned in the show and there’s no plot. It’s just song after song without much of a connection between them, and the settings of the individual songs are fairly arbitrary. Some settings are clever–like the end of Act 1 and the combination of “D.W. Washburn” and “Saved”, which is the absolute highlight of the show, with a fun comic performance from Crandle and the soaring voice and energetic presence of Gilles, who has my vote for MVP of this production. Many of the other settings, however, are fairly interchangeable, and some of the performances can be lackluster (such on the distinctly underwhelming “Jailhouse Rock” sequence that borrows from the film but lacks its energy). Overall, though, the cast does a fine job singing and dancing the songs well.
I realize that not all shows have to be deep or profound, but something like this barely qualifies as theatre. It’s a concert, plain and simple, no matter how well done. STAGES has done an excellent job with the material, but with their resources, I think they could be spending them on better shows. For an evening of light entertainment, though, I suppose Smokey Joe’s Cafe works.
Cast of Smokey Joe’s Cafe
Photo by Peter Wochniak
STAGES St. Louis
Smokey Joe’s Cafe, presented by STAGES St. Louis, runs at the Robert G. Reim Theatre in Kirkwood until June 28, 2015
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