‘Five Guys Named Moe’ entertains with buoyancy

When you have a show with only six men and three ladies singing and dancing in a plot so thin it's barely there, you'd better have people involved who know what they're doing.

Super Summer Theatre/First Step Productions' "Five Guys Named Moe" feels about as complete an evening of entertainment as you can get. It's 90 minutes of emotional richness set to Louis Jordan hits ("The King of the Jukebox").

The threadbare story: Poor white guy No Max (Brent Roberts) is drinking the night away in front of his big-city apartment building after breaking up with his girlfriend. He's listening on the radio to the black group Five Guys Named Moe, until he's had enough and throws the radio in the trash. Magically, all five songsters appear -- that's Little Moe (Keith Dotson), Eat Moe (Rich Frieson), Big Moe (Carnell Johnson), Four-eyed Moe (Quavail Leontay) and No Moe (Robert West III), as well as backups Afton Garrett, Taylor Henderson and Misty West. They're out to save Max's soul with Jordan's 1930s-1950s classics, which just goes to show how much the jazz great and his co-writers knew about love.

Director Steve Huntsman gives the action the jubilancy it needs. At one point, the show spills into the audience as its members join a conga. It's as if the cast were incapable of keeping the hypnotic buoyancy confined to the stage.

Shannon Winkel's choreography is nearly never-ending, and yet always feels new and embedded in character and situation. She excels at group numbers, solos and romantic couplings. Huntsman's set is brilliant: an inner-city street scene, complete with several frightening-looking apartment buildings, a stoop, and windows that hint of life inside. (The "life" is actually a top-notch six-member band, but let's not let facts get in our way.) Huntsman's costumes are loud, brazen and playful; just the sort of thing you'd expect to see amid 1940s Harlem nightlife.

The performers have distinct personalities yet blend well. They do plenty of expert nonsense songs, but it's often surprising how they each project tenderness when tenderness is called for.

Huntsman proves himself here an exceptional artist as director, set designer and costumer. He's previously proven himself a talented actor and song-and-dance man. I've seen triple threats before, but six threats is really pushing it.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at vegastheaterchat@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.