The Simon & Garfunkel Story
Mayfield Dinner Theatre,
16615 109 Ave. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
780-483-4051
mayfielddinnertheatre.ca
To October 30, 2016
Tickets, including dinner, $85 to $115.
REVIEW BY GRAHAM HICKS
I’m sure the sociologists and neurologists have a field day studying this one, but it’s true.
The pop music surrounding any given generation, from its high school years to the end of college, will become the most fondly remembered and favourite music of that generation for the rest of its days.
Which is why the Mayfield Dinner Theatre – off Mayfield Road and within the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Edmonton West - specializes in nostalgia musical shows.
“The Simon & Garfunkel Story” will more than earn its keep as it plays at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre through October 30, 2016.
Written and performed by Dean Elliott (he plays Paul Simon with fellow Englishman Jonny Muir as Art Garfunkel), Simon & Garfunkel is a lovely trip down nostalgia lane to drink in the duo’s every major hit within their four-year run as stars of the American folk-rock scene in the glorious popular music years from 1966 to 1970.
The magic of this show is contained within the live renditions of the songs themselves - close your eyes and this isn’t Elliott and Muir singing, but Simon & Garfunkel.
The band members, on stage surrounding the two singers, stay out of the spotlight but they are such accomplished musicians as to convey every nuance of Simon’s often complex and emotionally invested compositions.
Unlike some of the Mayfield’s latest musical biographies, The Simon & Garfunkel Story is not a drama about a singer, punctuated by songs. There’s no dramatic re-enactment, as took place in the Mayfield’s recent productions of Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison.
This may well be because the actual (public) story of the ascent and dominance of Simon & Garfunkel is rather mundane. Two Jewish kids from Queens, New York City form a close friendship – one with the “voice of an angel”, the other a budding musical genius who will become one of the best-known and most prolific singer-songwriters of his times.
There’s a couple of good story lines – the perseverance of one radio station in Florida to make Sounds of Silence into a mega-hit, Paul’s writing Homeward Bound in a Northern England train station, their break-up in 1970 after living in each other’s pocket for over 10 years.
But, overall, it’s a routine story: No reported alcoholism, no drug issues, no Yoko Ono. Private lives were kept very private. Both are now 74 years old, still performing (not together) and from all reports both are in good health.
Which is why Dean Elliott, as writer, decided to create a show where two musicians replicate Simon and Garfunkel hits as purely as possible.
In between the songs, Dean and Muir step back from their persona and tell stories about the duo – always referring to them in the third person.
It works. You can’t go wrong stringing together some of the most melodic, lyrically haunting songs of contemporary America and doing them note-perfect:
Of the whole show, only three not-immediately-recognizable songs showed up. The rest – the entire opening night audience knew the melodies and the main lyrics.
While it’s a tribute, there also has to be Simon and Garfunkel chemistry. The show needs its two leads to at least vaguely resemble those whom they honour. It’s a tad ironic that the story of two fellas out of New York City is told with British accents, but hey, Elliott is Paul Simon-esque in stature and hairstyle. Like Garfunkel, Muir is tall and skinny with fuzzy straw-coloured hair and a black turtleneck.
Any fan of Simon & Garfunkel, especially the Baby Boomers at whom this story is unabashedly aimed, will enjoy this show. It’s an audio feast, as if playing the band’s five vinyl studio albums (plus their tunes from The Graduate) back-to-back on an old but acoustically rich turntable. Yes, they started with Sounds of Silence, and ended with Bridge Over Troubled Water.
If you chose to attend, be forewarned: You will be humming Simon and Garfunkel tunes for days and days. Once awakened, those musical memories stick to the conscious mind like super-glue.
If there was a weakness to the show, it was the constant repetition, on the screen behind the performers of the same visual protest clips from the musically rich but politically troubled ‘60s. Which is ironic, as Simon & Garfunkel were the least political of the super-star bands of the ‘60s. I suspect the video creation team ran out of ideas, given the duo weren’t all that interesting off-stage.
Kudos to Elliott and Muir: “Impersonation” usually comes across as Vegas/Elvis Presley shtick, but in this case it is tribute artistry of the highest order.