Ten years ago this sure-fire crowd-pleaser was a huge hit at Geva Theater directed by Pamela Hunt with musical direction by Corinne Aquilina. Now with the addition of choreography by Mercedes Ellington, it promises to be an even bigger success. The music, mostly R&B and mostly by Louis Jordan, is mostly iresistible, and six gifted and charismatic artists perform the hell out of it.
The revue set-up has virtually no story to worry about. Five performers named Moe magically appear to a guy listening to his radio and suffering from the blues, and they "advise" him about how to get along with his girl. Act 2, he sits in a club and watches their act, then tells them they've shown him that he needs to apologize for his uncaring behavior and get back with his girl.Big song and dance finish. So much for plot.
My problem with the show is that I really dislike theater pieces that require the audience to perform much of the material. We get exhorted to join in and sing. A "Moe" points to a spotlit audience member and remonstrates, "This man is not singing!" A big billboard is lowered with the lyrics to "Push Ka Pi Shi Pie," and we must stand and sing this "poetry" before being led down the aisles in a conga line:
"PUSH KA PI SHI PIE EHEH
PUSH KA PI SHI PIE EHEH
OOBLIE-AAYEE EYE YAH ABLA
IT'S THE NEW CALYPSO BE BOP."
That conga line eventually winds onto and off the stage, up the center aisle and out to the lobby for intermission. Audiences love it. I don't. Neither, interestingly, do the performers who have to lead the audience participation and know that it contributes heavily to the show's success. But it also messes up the pacing and lessens the achievement of the trained, talented performers.
In this incarnation, they are Darius Nichols, rubber-legged and adorable as "Nomax," the blues-ridden guy with the beautiful voice whom the Moes educate; Darryl Reuben Hall as "No Moe," a knockout singing "Messy Bessy" and the strongest dancer after J. Cameron Barnett's showy comic "Four-Eyed Moe"; those two clown terrifically through "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens." Then there's Jim Weaver's "Eat Moe" (he talks incessantly about the joys of food), a lithe leading-man type who sings "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying" like an angel; and short, bald Randy Donaldson as acrobatic dancer "Little Moe" who virtually stops the show with "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie." And finally, Michael-Leon Wooley, whose huge frame makes casting him as "Big Moe" inevitable, but whose sensational stage charisma and unusually strong, fine voice indicate a talent bigger than his physique.
Director Pamela Hunt is too smart to allow the revue's many Minstrel-show elements to come across as undignified, and she makes it all "sell" entertainingly. Choreographer Mercedes Ellington is too sophisticated to even understand what "Minstrel-show elements" could mean and makes the dancing sharp, lively and fun. And Corinne Aquilina, returning after some absence to her native Rochester, directs this music, like her many New York musicals, with impeccable style, leading jazzily on keyboards, and still looking like young Liza Minnelli.
