A DATE WITH ELVIS
After his death he became Saint Elvis of the Tabloids, the holy, blissful martyr for America’s only state-sponsored religion–consumerism. Black velvet paintings of Elvis were sold alongside equally garish paintings of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the pope. Elvis seemed an inexhaustible source for parody and satire. He became a regular feature in tabloid headlines and Bob Greene columns. The bottom really fell out of the Elvis-parody market when David Wolper had a couple hundred Elvis impersonators performing simultaneously at the hyper-kitsch 1986 birthday celebration for the Statue of Liberty.
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Going into A Date With Elvis, I knew no comedy about Elvis could ever equal the vulgarity of that event. As it turned out, A Date With Elvis was much better than I expected, though not without its flaws.
Thankfully, this first bit passes quickly, and before long the show is off and running, or rather, the show is off and wandering. The story that unfolds is vaguely about a man named Shorty who lives with (and might be married to) a woman with three personalities (one modeled on Judy Holliday, another on Barbara Stanwyck, the third on Priscilla Presley), who is in love with a man who might be the reincarnation of Elvis. Elvis in turn has a friend from Memphis named Insane, who, it turns out, knew Shorty years before and might even have killed his twin brother.
Still, more often than not this show’s interesting and even funny, in a vulgar, anarchistic, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink kind of way. There are worse ways to spend $3.
