Blending the history of band Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) and biography of the creator of most of its original songs, Creedence Clearwater Remixed! aims to connect with audiences who love CCR’s music. Florida Studio Theater’s Goldstein Cabaret has never been more colorful than now with its changing lighted “scenery” or the plaids and the checkered shirts worn by performers or the images suggested by CCR’s songs. I’m always a bit leery, though, of a performance title that ends in an exclamation point, as if to direct audience response to or understanding of the show’s importance.
Actually, I observed the “Remix” of songs presented at FST to be an audience pleaser. MIxing it up with extensive biographical comments on the main song creator, John Fogerty, though, gets too repetitive. The script tells less about how his groups and songs developed than it does about Fogerty’s forced contractual need to produce so many and be long cheated of fame for them, financial reward and ownership of his musical rights.
Among the best received Fogerty songs as performance takes over in Act I are “Down on the Corner,” “Green River,” and “Proud Mary” from 1969. A CCR departure from Fogerty songs, “Susie Q” draws up to the stage an audience member to engage in acting out Dale Hawkins and Robert Chaisson’s lyrics. I applaud that it did not make fun of able Laraine from the audience as often happens on purpose for crude cruise-ship humor.
Act II begins with each performer coming out separately to be “Lookin’ Out My Back Door”, calmer than they’d all had been at the show’s start. “Bad Moon Rising” follows in amazing purple lighting. Also in “Born on the Bayou” from 1969 comes the realization that CCR didn’t even guess how important their appearing at Woodstock would be.
“I Heard It from the Grapevine” not by John Fogerty, was surely important to CCR, though. Publicity for the cast who’ve opened now at FST lists the four players as The Grapevine Group. It is the song heralded in CCR’s best-selling album. The following “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” by John Fogerty marked his getting back his rights to his music and is done joyfully.
The cast performs a highly effective “Run Through the Jungle” in enveloping green, even of the stage background. There’s a brief notice about and pic of Fogerty’s wife but nothing as seemingly important as a baseball illustration on a side screen of his “Centerfield” song. The “Fortunate Son”, though an early creation, sums up his creative musical ability and his later final rewards.
Among the cast, Val Thurgood is the obvious leader as well as a confident performer. Several of the romantic songs are performed accordingly, vocally and bodily, by Krista Buccellato and Adam Machart. Dan Faber sometimes adds guitar music along with his vocalizing. The four work so beautifully together that I wished they could do a song or more and reduce the repetitive narration.
