Did Broadway Have Burning Love for Elvis Musical All Shook Up?
Here is a sampling of what they had to say:
William Stevenson in his Broadway.com Review: "Perhaps because there are so many characters—all in the throws of true love, unrequited love, or forbidden love—there is too much dialogue. Granted, DiPietro inserts some amusing lines, as when Sandra observes, 'You mostly marry your cousins around here, don't you?' But most of the time, all of the talk just slows things down... Fortunately, the show comes alive during the musical numbers. Director Christopher Ashley's staging is fun... While All Shook Up is a mindless, harmless, fun musical that certainly deserves to run longer than Good Vibrations, it never offers a hint of the sex appeal that made Elvis an icon. That's probably because the show has been carefully designed to appeal to families with tweens and teens. And since Times Square already feels like a theme park, the family-friendliness is hardly surprising. As far as Broadway tourist attractions go, All Shook Up isn't terrible, but it could have been a lot better."
Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "Within its unimaginative but ever-expanding subgenre—the prefab musical that takes its score from Top 40 hits of the past—this production actually rates as slicker and more skillful than most... But this relative slickness only highlights the emptiness of All Shook Up... Were it staged in a pint-size theater with cardboard scenery and a campy young cast, All Shook Up might be a moderate hoot. Or it might have been about 30 years ago, anyway. But inflated to the proportions demanded by a glamour barn like the Palace, it becomes a mind-numbing holler... Despite a strong-voiced, amiable cast that sings its collective heart out, all the shaking in All Shook Up feels several removes from the kind of firsthand vitality that audiences can't help falling in love with."
Clive Barnes of The New York Post: "It's the story that causes all the trouble. A concert might have worked better. Joe I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change DiPietro's distinctly uninteresting book for All Shook Up has a few odd Shakespearean overtones... DiPietro is no Shakespeare. The guy tries and tries. He adapts Shakespeare's heroines Viola and Rosalind by having Natalie dress up as a boy to get her man. It doesn't work—it just seems silly. Even sillier is the use of Elvis' music—from 'Hound Dog' and 'Heartbreak Hotel' to 'Jailhouse Rock' and 'Blue Suede Shoes,' too many hits miss the mark by their abrupt and fragmentary use. Christopher Ashley's direction is energetic to a point just short of frenetic, while David Rockwell's ingenious, highly animated settings and David C. Woolard's apt costuming are resourceful. And, as is so often true of bad shows, the performers are almost heartbreakingly good."
David Rooney of Variety: "If jukebox musicals, in the muddy wake of Good Vibrations, represent indecency to musical theater purists, then this buoyantly energetic confection stitched together from the Elvis Presley songbook makes them safe to embrace. OK, so it ain't Kander & Ebb, but this frothy show cracks the formula with at least as much wit and panache as Mamma Mia!, the benchmark by which all such ventures tend to be measured. Enormously appealing leads and knockout production values don't hurt, either, making this an unexpected, shameless good time... Almost outlandishly tall, with big, impossibly handsome features, [Cheyenne] Jackson is a magnetic presence and a natural for musicals, a confident comedy performer with a seductive singing style marred only by the production's nagging tendency to overmike the performers. While Jackson is not the most skilled dancer—the vigorous dance action often takes place around him—he has the scissoring legs, twitching shoulders and motoring pelvis down to a fine art. The quietly radiant [Jenn] Gambatese, who made a fine Penny in Hairspray, graduates to a lead role with charm to burn."
Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "What makes All Shook Up work so well is the show's cheerful, tongue-in-cheek sense of self. Book writer Joe DiPietro, one of the creators of the long-running off-Broadway revue I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, has concocted a goofy, often funny and sweet-tempered story that is an affectionate send-up not only of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, but all those cheesy movies Presley made during his mediocre film career... DiPietro has had the smarts not to take things too seriously, while director Christopher Ashley has assembled a crackerjack cast headed by hunky newcomer Cheyenne Jackson to deliver the goods... Jackson is a musical-theater find, blessed with good looks and, more importantly, the ability to be funny and self-deprecating. But then, there is equally fine work done by a whole parade of performers. They include a delightful Jenn Gambatese as Natalie, the tomboy female mechanic who falls for our hero; Leah Hocking as a blond femme fatale who runs the local art museum OK, that's a bit of a stretch and a hilarious Mark Price as Chad's nerdy sidekick."
Elysa Gardner of USA Today: "Most of the game young cast members of All Shook Up, which opened Thursday at the Palace Theatre, sing and act as if they just stepped off a Marvin Hamlisch tribute tour. There are some pretty and potent voices here, to be sure; but their approach to the material tends to range from painfully self-conscious to outright clueless. The calculated growls and mannered sneers that sometimes embellish golden oldies such as 'Hound Dog,' 'Don't Be Cruel' and 'That's All Right' only add to the false, sterile feel of the numbers. Joe DiPietro's book is even more tone-deaf."
Linda Winer of Newsday: "All Shook Up is more professional than Good Vibrations, which isn't the same thing as fabulous news. Joe DiPietro, author of such critic-proof comedies as I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, has cobbled together a cartoon of middle America in the 1950s from the leftovers of Grease, Hairspray and Footloose. It owes its plot improbabilities to A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night. Shakespeare goes uncredited so as not to frighten the horses.... Plugged into the action, such as it is, are unsettling American Idol arrangements of Elvis hits and near-misses... Jackson has the sort of sanitized charisma that may prove irresistible to fans of the early Patrick Swayze. At times, the appealing Gambatese has more of Elvis' curled-lip sneer than Chad does. Mark Price, as the nerd who loves Natalie, is a nice mix of David Spade and Don Knotts, while Sharon Wilkins and Nikki M. James are amusingly in on the joke as a black restaurant owner and her daughter. We can't help but suspect that Ashley and his cast are having more fun than we are."