| SMOKEY JOE'S CAFE SACRAMENTO MUSIC CIRCUS © The Sacramento Bee 'Smokey' is clearly a joy under the tent by William Glackin When the crowd stood and cheered at the Music Circus Monday night, it was like a company triumph for the band of nine intrepid performers of "Smokey Joe's Cafe." But judging by a few calls from the audience minutes before, part of the crowd may have realized it was also an individual triumph for Everett Bradley, who had taken the stage for the first time that evening to lead a rousing, climactic performance of the last numbers, "Stand By Me" and "Baby, That Is Rock & Roll." Bradley had spent most of the evening resting in his backstage dressing room after being indisposed only minutes before the show was scheduled to start. The Music Circus staff called their regular doctor, Dr. David L. Norene, immediately. He examined Bradley, and according to general manager Scott Eckern, agreed with the informal consensus that the day's heat may have been a plausible cause. The actor was scheduled to see the doctor again Tuesday. In the show's final scene, he sat center stage and beat the sizable bongo drum in his lap while singing with impressive spirit. Richard Lewis, managing director of the California Musical Theatre, which produces Music Circus, delayed the start of the show for 10 minutes while Bradley was deciding whether to sit out the first of the two acts. After the intermission, according to Eckern, Bradley decided to return for "Stand by Me." He looked pleased as he walked up the aisle after the show. "They all know this show so well and have worked together so long in some cases," Eckern said of the company, "that they were able to fill in very well, I thought." There are four women and five men in the cast of "Smokey Joe's Cafe," which enjoyed a five-year run in New York and has been independently produced in other parts of the United States. The Music Circus production is directed by Glenn Casale. The show consists entirely of 40 of the songs of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who not only wrote but also produced the many recordings of them that were made in the 1950s and 1960s by such stars as Elvis Presley and Peggy Lee and by many African American singing groups. In the Music Circus production Monday night, performance after performance radiated with the talent used with force and style in the service of the songs. Many profited from the additional verve brought by the easy, natural choreography of Jeffrey Polk. There was no story line, but there were lots of situations, episodes of falling in love (Colleen Hawks, fetching in a blue dress singing "Falling") and getting excited about it (Darryl Jovan, Michael Gruber, Devin Richards and Mathew Dickens winding up "Ruby Baby"). Sharon Wilkins, Deb Lyons and Gruber led the way with one of the show's best songs, "Kansas City." Debra Walton, a compact woman full of convincing attitude, took "Don Juan" to places you didn't expect. Almost all these journeys benefited from Leiber and Stoller's remarkable knack for writing catchy tunes with absolutely plausible sentiments. Who could deny "Hound Dog" or "Jailhouse Rock?" But time after time it was these performers, no doubt aided and abetted by Casale and Polk's moves, that sold you the song, all wrapped up and ready to keep. Some of the best stuff was saved for Act 2. All four women took turns with the old Peggy Lee hit, "I'm a Woman," and won tremendous approval from the audience. Jovan created equal excitement with the unusual "I (Who Have Nothing)." After the unanimous triumph of "I'm a Woman," the women walked coolly off; the men followed logically with "There Goes My Baby." With theater like that, who needs a story line? And perhaps the sight of the night was Hawks inspiring Gruber in her shimmy suit for "Teach Me How To Shimmy." |