In a way, the tradition continues.

When The Goodspeed Opera House opened in the mid-1960s, it focused on musicals that were 40 or even 50 years old.

Now Connecticut theatergoers are experiencing music that’s 60 or even more than 70 years old.

For although ALL SHOOK UP is a musical that opened on Broadway in 2005, its songs were first heard in the 1950s and 1960s, courtesy of one Elvis Presley.

And the Baby Boomers that jam-packed the East Haddam theater last week were thrilled to make their reacquaintance.

Every time a character sang a once-famous first line — from “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog” to “Wise men say only fools rush in” — the audience gave out with gurgles of pleasure. How they loved remembering the cherished songs that Presley sang to them when they were teens.

Although ALL SHOOK UP exclusively offers songs that Presley sang, this is not a bio-musical that tells the life story of the one-time King of rock ‘n’ roll (as rock was once called). Bookwriter Joe DiPietro had a story to tell — one very, very loosely based on TWELFTH NIGHT — so he needed songs that fit that template. 

As a result, 15 out of the 25 songs here can be found in the two-CD set Elvis Presley: The 50 Greatest Hits. The other ten came from the B-sides of Presley’s hit records or from his many B-level films. Six of those obscurities appear in Act Two, so many theatergoers were hearing songs they’d never heard before. But from the audience reaction, they welcomed them almost as warmly as the chart-toppers. 

What’s on stage now isn’t quite the same musical that’s spent six months on the stage of the Palace in 2005. DiPietro’s rewrite now has the show start with “Jailhouse Rock,” the title song of Presley’s 1957 movie. Chad — our Elvis stand-in — leads his fellow prisoners in song.

Funny; musicals in the early part of the 20th century often opened with a chorus welcoming us to their town; this device became such a cliché that the term “merry villagers” was used. Well, here we have a variation: decidedly un-merry prisoners takes us to their “village.”

We can understand why DiPietro would want the musical to start with this number, because it is dynamic. But its starting the show isn’t a good idea, even when we’re told that Chad was only incarcerated for a weekend.

Seeing anyone who’s done any time at all does at least put the thought in our heads that he might actually be guilty of some crime. When he arrives in a small town and falls in love with a woman there, we must wonder what she’d be getting into if she were to become involved with him. His stint in jail is never again mentioned in any way.

Although Shakespeare did provide DiPietro his framework, what the librettist has concocted is actually Chekovian – meaning that most every man and woman is in love with someone who isn’t in love with him or her. So, Dennis loves Natalie who loves Chad who loves Sandra as does Jim, who’s loved by Sylvia.

And who does Sandra love? Ed. 

Who?

Just as TWELFTH NIGHT has Viola pretend to be a man to make her way in Illyria, here Natalie becomes Ed in hopes of getting close to Chad, because as he made clear that Natalie, a mechanic, was not his type of woman. 

Convoluted? We’ve only just begun. When Natalie lifts a big glob of grease to her chin, we might fear that she’s donning blackface. Not quite: the grease is meant to replicate stubble so she can appear to Chad as a man who needs a shave: Ed.

Could this possibly fool Chad or virtually everyone else in town? The smell alone would inform anyone who got close – and Chad does. But he never does see what is all-too apparent.

Such a show always sees to it that everything works out for everyone. Ah, but DiPietro does have one surprising moment just before the final curtain that is actually satisfactory, even innovative. 

But who’s the musical’s villain? Here DiPietro took a leaf out of FOOTLOOSE’s libretto and has Mayor Matilda turn her own strait-laced values into laws. Dangerous music and dancing are out, and there’s to be “no public necking and no tight pants.” 

Needless to say, Chad will have plenty to say about that, as he’s the sparkplug that the rest of the town embraces. No wonder that Mayor Matilda deems Chad (song cue!) “The Devil in Disguise.”

DiPietro also seems to have remembered ONCE UPON A MATTRESS, because Matilda resembles Queen Aggravain, whose husband King Septimus is silent. So is Matilda’s spouse, Sheriff Earl. 

(Let’s not give away whether he, like Septimus, will be the mouse that roars before all is said and sung.)

Matilda and Earl have a son Dean, and he too is dominated by his mother as Prince Dauntless was by Aggravain. Here he’s in love with Lorraine, a black lass, so you can imagine how that will strike his white mother, who’s living in a midwestern town in 1955. 

Her horror at the situation makes sense, but what doesn’t is DiPietro’s having Blacks and whites co-mingle harmoniously in Sylvia’s Café. In a 1955 Midwestern town? How did a Black woman wind up owning a nightclub in such a time and place, anyway? If she did, wouldn’t it cater to Blacks only, either because only Blacks would want to go there or because Blacks wouldn’t be allowed in the white square-state’s venues?

But, as TWELFTH NIGHT said in its opening line, “If music be the food of love, play on.” And there’s a veritable feast in the songs (if ‘50s rock is the type of music that you like). 

The Goodspeed audience embraced the new takes on the old tunes and showed their appreciation every step of the way. Many times, the theatergoers began applauding when the song still had a few notes to go – one of the best compliments a singer and songwriter could ever hope to get.

What they also related to was seeing Old Guard Matilda fail against new ideas. Just as the music brought these Baby Boomers back to their youth, so did memories of their rebellions at home and on the streets. After all, Baby Boomers were the first American generation that by and large (and in large numbers) defied their parents and caused civil unrest.

With only a single exception, the cast does well. Amy Hillner Larsen is overly silly as Mayor Matilda, but this is apparently what Daniel Goldstein, who staged the show, apparently wanted. 

Otherwise, he’s provided good enough direction, a description that’s also good enough to categorize Byron Easley’s choreography.

As Chad, Ryan Mac looks a bit lightweight for a character that would seem to be bigger and beefier, but he does the job. Mac specializes in that signature Presley move of knocking his knees together.

(He might welcome at the stage door the Baby Boomers who can give him the names of their surgeons who did their knee replacements.)

Near the show’s conclusion, one character says, “I am so glad that I came here tonight.” From the sustained applause and cheers that ALL SHOOK UP garnered, the Goodspeed audience was undoubtedly saying the same thing.