To sort of quote The King: We're a little mixed up, but we're feeling fine.
Get this: Joe Mandragona — the actor playing the Elvis-type character in the musical "All Shook Up," headed this way next week — is 25.
Twenty-five.
Heck, he wasn't even born when Elvis the Pelvis died (that would be 1977).
All shook up, indeed.
Though Mandragona wasn't entirely ignorant of Elvis — really now, who could be? — he did have to do a bit of research.
"I didn't know as much of his music as I do now," Mandragona said in a phone interview from Denver, where he was hoping the serious snowstorm the city was buried in didn't mean the show would have to be canceled for a second night in a row.
"But I watched a lot of Elvis videos to see how he moved, and to see what I could throw into my character. I'm not impersonating Elvis, but there's an essence of Elvis that finds its way into the character."
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While this Broadway musical isn't about Elvis, it's got his music, his attitude and his swiveling hips.
And it's got his enthusiastic fans.
"It's rare that we don't have an audience on their feet," Mandragona said.
And it's no wonder. There are more than two dozen Elvis songs in the musical. Among them: "All Shook Up," "Heartbreak Hotel," "Teddy Bear," "It's Now or Never" and "Jailhouse Rock."
"I love singing his music," Mandragona said. "It has soul, and our play tells a story, so it sounds good and progresses the story."
About that story:
Chad is a surly kind of guy who's just been released from jail. He's the kind of cat that isn't welcome in a small Midwest town in the 1950s — you know, a young, croonin' rock 'n' roller.
Chad cruises into the town on his motorcycle, and when he discovers that the mayor has outlawed any fun — no loud music or indecent behavior — he vows to change all that.
New York critics weren't kind to the show. The New York Times called it "another synthetic jukebox musical."
"If Elvis impersonators had a union, do you suppose this latest incarnation of the 'jukebox musical' could have been prevented?" asked New York magazine.
But in Seattle, where this road show was in December, the Post-Intelligencer newspaper called it a "lively, sweet joy."
Whatever critics say about it, it's a musical that Mandragona — a theater graduate from the University of California-Berkeley who had done primarily Shakespeare before he landed this role — thinks is just what we need these days.
"The music is really, really fantastic, and the orchestrations add a new touch to the music, and the choreography is a blast, and the script is hilarious," he said, sounding a bit like a breathless, enthusiastic 25-year-old instead of the star of a Broadway roadshow.
"It's a feel-good musical."
All Shook Up
• Presented by: Broadway in Tucson/A Nederlander Presentation.
• By: Joe DiPietro.
• Director: Christopher Ashley.
• Where: Tucson Music Hall at the Tucson Convention Center, 260 S. Church Ave.
• When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 8 p.m. next Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Jan. 6; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Jan. 7.
• Tickets: $22-$58, with discounts available; half-price student tickets available for the Jan. 2-5 performances.
• Information: 321-1000.
• Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes, with one intermission.
• Cast: Joe Mandragona, Jenny Fellner. Susan Anton.
• Look for: The review in Thursday's Accent.
