THEATER REVIEW; A Gymnastic Pop Singer Caught Up in a Melodrama

There is essentially one reason -- and it's a very good one -- to see ''The Jackie Wilson Story,'' and that is the star, Chester Gregory II. To call a performer unique is generally to be clichéd and hyperbolic, not to mention wrong, but Mr. Gregory puts on a show of such physical and vocal dexterity that it's almost impossible to imagine that anyone else could do it.

As Wilson, the Detroit singer whose career spanned the morphing of the city's musical signature from rhythm and blues into Motown and whose hits included ''Lonely Teardrops'' and ''Higher and Higher,'' Mr. Gregory cavorts and gyrates with such gymnastic aplomb that you wonder where he stores the lung power for his potent pop tenor. His presence completely overshadows the show itself, which has been imported from Chicago and runs through April 27 at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, part of a national tour.

The show, written and directed by Jackie Taylor, is problematic in almost every respect other than the star. Its book is awkward and full of hokey clichés, as well as being foggy on many biographical details. The direction is rudimentary; the tale is told by a variety of narrators, stepping up to address the audience directly and giving way usually to a song, occasionally to a scene. The high schoolish sets make it obvious that the production is underfinanced. And most unhappily, the sound engineering is atrocious.

Somehow none of that really matters. From the start the audience is hooked on the promise of the music and, at least at one recent performance, was eager to buy into the travails of the troubled, talented Wilson, portrayed here not so much as self-indulgent and self-destructive but as a charming, winsome and unfortunate rogue. Mr. Gregory gives the kind of overflowingly charismatic performance that has the audience eating out of -- and in one scene literally kissing -- his hand.

Wilson's life was a melodrama. A talented boxer (and a bit of a hoodlum) as a young man, he was persuaded by his mother -- played here by Melba Moore, who can still belt it out -- to give it up.

Cocky and suave, he was a drinker, a street fighter and a womanizer from an early age. He began his singing career as part of a group called the Dominoes, eventually becoming their lead singer and subsequently taking off on his own.

His solo career, with a stage act characterized by acrobatic dancing and the kind of hip shaking and pelvis thrusting that made Elvis Presley notorious, was fueled by songs written by Billy Davis and Berry Gordy, before the founding of Motown Records. Wilson, though, unfortunately spent his entire career tethered to Brunswick Records, which proved to be mob-controlled and involved in payola.

There were also huge tax problems, drug and alcohol addictions and several paternity suits; in 1961 a woman, evidently an enraged paramour, shot and nearly killed him. In 1975 he apparently had a heart attack onstage in a New Jersey club and lapsed into a coma from which he never emerged. He died in 1984.

It is a shame that ''The Jackie Wilson Story'' hasn't found a more stageworthy way to dramatize these events. It's all related in recitation, which turns the show into something of a television-style biography, and the narration is sloppy, with the facts of Wilson's business career especially difficult to track. The dearth of theatrics also places a greater burden on the musical numbers.

Fortunately, they are almost all terrific. The secondary players are very good. Lyle Miller does a remarkable imitation of Sam Cooke performing ''Tennessee Waltz,'' and Valarie Tekosky does a creditable Etta James, performing ''Something's Got a Hold on Me.''

But for the most part you are either in awe of Mr. Gregory or impatient for his return. In addition to his uptempo numbers, he croons a soul version of ''Danny Boy,'' belts out the heartbreaking torch song ''To Be Loved'' and even does a very funny brief impression of Mario Lanza. That he does all this while doing splits, backward limbo bends and more is jaw dropping. He seemed to tire at the end, but no ticket buyer would blame him.

THE JACKIE WILSON STORY

Written and directed by Jackie Taylor; produced by Ms. Taylor and Brian Kabatznick; musical directors, Jimmy Tillman and Rick Hall; bandleader, Robert Reddrick; musical arrangements, George Paco Patterson; production stage manager, Dre Robinson; production manager, Dennis Leggett; associate producer, Douglas Gray. Presented by the Black Ensemble Touring Company. At the Apollo, 253 West 125th Street, Harlem.

WITH: Chester Gregory II (Jackie Wilson), Melba Moore (Eliza), Rueben Echoles (BB), Katrina Tate (Freda), Mark D. Hayes (Roquel ''Billy'' Davis), Robert Thomas (Carl Davis), Elfeigo N. Goodun III (Father and William Davis), Lyle Miller (Shaker, Sam Cooke and Clyde McPhatter), Tony Duwon (Shaker, Billy Ward and Reporter), Valarie Tekosky (Etta James and Harlene) and Eva D (LaVern Baker and Barbara Acklin).