Special to The Telegram

Full of Big Easy turns of phrase and studded with allusions to the career and music of Elvis Presley, Graceland tells a slight but touching story of dreams unfulfilled in the context of poor white American culture.

Set in decaying, deep bayou Louisiana, the first of the two parts takes place in 1972. Thirteen-year-old Rootie (Amanda Vallis) enjoys a close relationship with her protective older brother, Beau (Jordan Flynn). In their special place, a burnt-out plantation, where the ghosts of the Old South susurrate, brother and sister horse about, exchange Elvis trivia, or hum his songs, while sharing hopes and aspirations under a starry sky.

This is their last day together. Beau quit his dead-end job in a sugar refinery and enlisted in the U.S. army for service in a far- away tropical paradise called Vietnam, leaving his Elvis records in his sister’s care and leaving Rootie to the protection of his best buddy, Weebo.

By turns playful, emotional and lyrical, Vallis and Flynn shape an engaging portrait of the fondness existing between the pouty, gawky, beribboned girl on the verge of adolescence and the lean, loose-hipped brother sporting Elvis Presley side-burns. Their parting is affecting without being maudlin.

The second half takes place 10 years later, outside Graceland, the grandiose mansion that is the memorial temple to the departed Elvis — rock ’n’ roll king now apotheosized into rock ’n’ roll deity. Three days before Graceland is to be opened to the public, Rootie and an older woman stake their claim to be the first fan to enter the shrine.

Rootie married Weebo and is now running away from her husband. We never see Weebo, but her naive account of life with him suggests that in the Louisiana of the good ol’ boys alligators don’t just inhabit the bayou.

Rootie is older but still innocent. Her rival, Bev (Jacki St. Croix), is a hard-boiled matron from Delaware, with a Dolly Parton hair-do, dressed in a blue jump suit. Both women are obsessed with the dead singer.

For Rootie, he has become synonymous with the lost brother. If she can get into Graceland first and talk to the dead Elvis, perhaps he can bring Beau back — just like in Brigadoon. Nutty talk, says Bev.

Duelling with Elvis trivia, they jockey for position and squabble over who is first in line. But, as they exchange confidences, food, and even the Dolly Parton wig, their rivalry modulates into intimacy, and Bev takes the innocent under her wing — while we witness the comedy and the pathos of the Presley cult flourishing in a culture bereft of worthier idols.

St. Croix crafts a well-shaped and confident comic portrayal of the overblown but compassionate American matron, who uses Elvis as a sexual surrogate while her husband repeats his tedious stories of past prowess. Building on the child-character of the first half, Vallis creates a consistent, candid and likable portrait of the eager, insecure, almost-adult Rootie.

This is neither a major nor a complex script, but its rendering nevertheless delivers an honest, amusing and affecting evening of theatre.