Matt Cage, Melissa MacPherson, Rain Matkin-Szilagyi and Andrew McCallister in One Night With Roy Orbison, Mayfield Theatre. Photo by Marc J Chalifoux

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Early in the vintage hit-studded revue currently on the Mayfield stage, the narrator tells us that before his career really took off, an aspiring young Texas singer-songwriter named Roy Orbison pitched an original song to Elvis. And Elvis turned it down.

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Which has got to be on the honour roll of any All-Time Showbiz Regrets compilation (an idea whose time has yet to come, but I’m working on it). That song was Only the Lonely, the show opener of One Night With Roy Orbison, written and compiled by Kevin Dabbs and Christine Bandelow.

What follows is an evening that features the indelible music of an artist who made it on his songs and his voice — and not on a stage persona or showmanship. He was one of the first true singer-songwriters at the time, with a penchant for wistful, melancholy ballads of heartbreak, doubt, love lost and available only in dreams — and a lustrous, deep but unusually multi-octave voice. Fellow musicians, who have covered his songs constantly, were awestruck by that distinctive sound, judging by tributes to which the narrator (Melissa MacPherson) alludes. And by Orbison’s inclusion in the ad hoc super-group The Traveling Wilburys  along with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne.

You can see the challenges, both musical and theatrical, built into One Night With Roy Orbison. The Mayfield production, directed by co-creator Bandelow, stars Matt Cage, a veteran of numerous appearances as Elvis in assorted revues, including One Night With The King and Million Dollar Quartet, which have both played the Mayfield in their time.

Cage does conjure the signature look of the man, in his prescription sunglasses and black suit — a “stand-up and deliver kind of guy,” unusually still, undemonstrative, and un-ingratiating onstage, with his excellent trio of low-key-back-up singers and their minimalist elbow choreography. And he does evoke, without ever quite capturing, the storied magic of that voice, with its rich timbre and eerie swoops.

So you do get the idea of Orbison. And the stage is fun to look at, thanks to Ivan Siemens’s set, a kind of light-up back-drop image of a radio where Matt Schuurman’s video design plays across the “dial” and Gail Ksionzyk’s neon lighting effects glow in different colours,

In addition to a song list embedded in the collective consciousness and triggered into life by the first chords of every number — Blue Bayou, In Dreams, Crying, It’s Over — Cage has a great asset in the five-piece band, as always top-quality at the Mayfield, along with Jon Lovell’s sound design. Melissa MacPherson’s Emmylou Harris duet That Lovin’ You Feelin’ with Orbison, Rain Matkin-Szilagyi’s powerhouse delivery of Crying, and Oscar Derkx as Tom Petty are highlights.

The narration from MacPherson, which selects and annotates fragments out of Orbison’s career biography, seems a bit hit and miss. It’s not that anyone wants an exhaustive scholarly timeline in a revue (trust me, I’ve seen lots of those). But heightened, over-animated introductions, with a wonderstruck ‘can you believe it?’ air designed I guess to compensate for the legendary gravitas in the star performer, sit rather disjointedly in the show. Just when “happiness was finally within his grasp” (finally? huh?), tragedy struck. Which is not to say Orbison’s life wasn’t full of terrible family tragedies, including the death of his wife in a road accident and his two young sons in a house fire (followed oddly by “it’s over … your baby doesn’t love you any more”). But the script could use a bit of tinkering with some sort of through-line if a story is to emerge.

In Act II for a brief scene Orbison himself, in Cage’s performance, steps out of his immovable stage incarnation, to annotate humorously the impromptu way The Traveling Wilburys came together. Oddly Cage as Orbison is the one onstage who does a fun George Harrison imitation, before he returns to the act, and a medley of familiar songs by that group.   

But then, who goes to an Orbison revue really hoping to learn more about his reserved personality or his career trajectory? It’s the songs that count. And those you will hear, in glorious number, by a performer who delivers with a fine band. And that’s a lot.

REVIEW

One Night With Roy Orbison

Theatre: Mayfield Dinner Theatre

Written and compiled by: Kevin Dabbs and Christine Bandelow

Starring: Matt Cage, Oscar Derkx, Melissa MacPherson, Rain Matkin-Szilagyi, Andrew McCallister

Running: through April 5

Tickets: mayfieldtheatre.ca