On December 4th, 1965 Carl Perkins was at Sun Records for a recording session. Playing the piano on at that session was a young musician named Jerry Lee Louis. On that same night, Sun Records former star player Elvis Presley dropped by for a visit with a gal pal of his, and current Sun Records superstar Johnny Cash stopped in to say hey as well. They played music. They sang together. Somebody thought this would be great idea for a musical.
There isn't anything to be said about the story at hand, because there isn't one. Characters speak to each other, but they don't speak about anything. There are a few book scenes that tell of how each Sun Records star came to be found by Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records, and of how each of them also came to leave the man that gave them their respective golden opportunities. These scenes are awkwardly placed, poorly, written, and poorly acted.
The gentlemen playing each of these superstars are all talented singers and instrumentalists. Only Levi Kreiss as Jerry Lee Louis makes you forget that you are watching a man give a performance as a legend of rock N roll. His buoyant energy transcends the material he has been given to work with.
Nobody can argue that the music isn't good. These are all solid gold hits. Fans of these artists and of this music will probably enjoy the show more than I did for this reason. While I have an appreciation for the music, and do enjoy some of the songs in the show, for the most part you feel like you've been duped into paying Broadway ticket prices to watch a tribute band.
It's truly disheartening when a show like this, that has no value what so ever as a piece of theater can run for over a year on Broadway, when shows with meaningful messages, truly gripping stories, and fantastic music can only manage a few short months. The best thing I can say about Million Dollar Quartet is that it was better than Urban Cowboy: The Musical but if they put THAT on the posters they'd never sell tickets.
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