Bucks County Playhouse presents 'Million Dollar Quartet'

“Million Dollar Quartet” was Sun Records producer Sam Phillips’s term for an impromptu jam session held in his Memphis, Tennessee, studio December 4, 1956. In attendance were Johnny Cash (Sky Seals), Jerry Lee Lewis (Brandyn Day), Carl Perkins (John Michael Presney, also music director), and Elvis Presley (Ari McKay Wilford). Each of these legends was discovered and nurtured by Phillips (James Ludwig).

The session really happened, and recordings exist. Writers Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux chose from the songs they actually performed, mixed in popular hits (this foursome had plenty!), and framed it all with Phillips’s narration and some contrived drama.

You wrote a song about your shoes?

Million Dollar Quartet is strongest when the cast, which also includes Zach Crossman on drums and James David Larson at the stand-up bass, play their instruments and sing the show’s 24 songs. They capture the rough, textured sound of early rock-and-roll recordings when songs were performed complete in one take without overdubbing, multiple tracks, or any other technological trickery.

Josh Smith’s scenic design includes clunky period amplifiers and lots of cords, as well as the humble flavor of Sun’s modest digs, a former auto-parts shop. Lauren T. Roark’s costumes capture the period and the famous characters’ distinctive styles. Kirk Bookman’s lighting glitzes up the show with lots of color.

Each actor chooses a familiar affectation, some more successfully than others. Seals’s defiant stance and guitar handling mirror Cash convincingly, while Wilford overworks Elvis’s trademark sneer. Presney displays Perkins’s intense guitar chops, but Day’s Lewis plays the fool and is reviled by the others. Did the “Killer” really act like a prepubescent Harpo Marx? I hope not.

But, really, it’s all about the songs. Presney’s Perkins starts the show with “Blue Suede Shoes,” which Elvis covered, causing some friction between them. Seals, as Cash, sings “Folsom Prison Blues” and several gospel songs. Wilford-Elvis sings “Hound Dog” and “That’s Alright,” but my favorite was his crooning of Dean Martin’s “Memories Are Made of This.”

Lewis pounds out “Great Balls of Fire,” and closes the show with “Whole Lotta Shakin’.” Elvis actually brings a girlfriend, fictionalized as Dyanne (Ryah Nixon), who sings “Fever” and “I Hear Ya Knockin’.”

They back one another up and harmonize for “Down by the Riverside,” a medley of “Rockin’ Robin” and “I Shall Not Be Moved,” and a lovely rendition of “Peace in the Valley,” performing more gospel than one might expect.

Both Elvis and Cash recorded spirituals and Lewis was almost a preacher, upstaged by his cousin Jimmy Swaggart. They also crush Chuck Berry’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man.”

I’ve been everywhere, man

Escott and Mutrux can’t resist adding material aimed at today’s audience. Cash gets a chuckle when he utters the title of a hit he recorded in 1996. Phillips makes a disparaging comment about Elvis’s “terrible movies,” though he had only made one (Love Me Tender) when the quartet jammed; his vapid romance musicals came in the 1960s.

The writers conscientiously, if blatantly, acknowledge the black rhythm-and-blues artists whose songs and styles these and other white artists appropriated and sold to white teenagers. They also end the show with a drawn-out, completely fictional finale, playing to the audience that wasn’t at Sun Records that fateful day.

Maybe they’re following the mediocre Mamma Mia! model of a closing concert negating all shortcomings, but they shove the show’s storyline and history aside for it. Million Dollar Quartet shoots for the big score, when a more realistic ending would be a greater risk for a much better reward.