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The Minskoff Theatre
Saturday Night Fever
musical by The Bee Gees, etc.
November 21, 1999
Review by Andrew Yarrows
 
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Yes, my long overdue review of SNF is here at last, part of what will be a three-in-one look at productions I have recently seen (or not-so-recently seen, I should say, as is the case with the first show to be reviewed). So, bear with me and I’ll try to make these slightly abridged reviews as complete and coherent as I possibly can. Believe me, with the exception of James Joyce’s The Dead, it won’t be easy, as two of the featured shows are not the sort of offerings one can muster up brief, pleasant things to say about. And you know how I simply loathe sitting here, coming up with sassy things to say about bad theatre. So, without further ado...
Saturday Night Fever is the kind of show that holds me dumfounded for two hours or so, in awe of how crappy a big budget musical import from London can actually be despite boasting a semi-competent cast and a lively set of tunes that most everyone is familiar with in advance. The musical is, of course, a theatrical adaptation of the 1978 John Travolta smash film, the score supplied directly by its wildly successful soundtrack of mainly Bee Gees tunes and a few non-Bee Gee disco classics. The problem isn’t the fact that these are somewhat frivolous, un-dramatic pop songs being sung onstage to help tell the show’s story, it’s rather the fact that none of the lyrics have been altered to suit the events at hand or, more importantly, the characters to which they have been given. Apparently the method used to construct the musical version of the film was to simply dole out soundtrack cuts to whichever character seems best represented by them, even if they ultimately make little sense in the context of the show. This was an issue I addressed in an earlier review of Footloose, but the problems are even more glaring in SNF. Many sequences, thanks to this lackluster and outright lazy concept, are completely ruined by songs that, while managing to sound great as outtakes from a hit parade, serve in no way to further plot developments or character definition.
Nan Knighton’s adaptation of the film is what you’d expect it to be, however it remains unfortunate that the show wasn’t written to deviate even slightly from its source material, a move that might have allowed the soundtrack numbers to be allocated to the story’s characters in ways that actually make sense. Arlene Phillips gets credit for directing and choreographing the piece, which might explain why the show reeks of Big 80’s, mega-musical rancidity. The sets follow suit, looking very expensive but seeming somewhat unnecessary. For example, a massive, UFO-like colossus descends upon the dance floor just prior to the big dance contest at the end of the show, shooting jets of steam about the stage as it makes a landing. It then zips back into the flies, making me wonder what the point of spending so much money (I’m assuming) on such a ridiculously short-lived special effect was, or on many of the sets, in fact. The whole show might as well have been set in the oft-used Disco set to save money, because anything that happened in the story beyond the confines of the dance floor was difficult to care about.
This emotionally vacuous, gaudy musical follows the story of the film very closely, yet none of the emotional intensity or dramatic impact is preserved. Instead, it is consistently wasted on pointless numbers that seem to have been inserted into the show solely for purposes of pumping up the audience’s response to old radio (or discotheque) favorites. The opening number, “Stayin’ Alive,” a silly number involving most of the cast, introduces us to Tony Manero, a young Brooklynite with a dead-end job who dances away his blues at the local disco house while dreaming of making a better life for himself. We see him prancing about the stage and interacting with the folk of his neighborhood, but I find it hard to believe that anyone really cares about the scene except for the fact that pulse-pounding Bee Gees music is being danced to onstage. The rest of the musical continues in this way, the storyline concerning Tony’s team-up with a fellow wanna-be-Manhattanite named Stephanie and the desperate affection showered upon the protagonist by the slutty club queen, Annette.
Speaking of Annette, the character is played quite well by the thunderously-voiced Orfeh, who does what she can with the generally miserable dialogue, excessively cheesy choreography and stinky solo numbers. Her big moment, Act One’s post-romantic rejection song, is “If I Can’t Have You (I Don’t Want Nobody Baby”), a song that, while sounding wonderfully dramatic and intensely sung, is ultimately nonsensical to her character’s situation. She was just rejected by Tony Manero, her obsession, and then, in the next scene, she is seen hanging all over strange men at the local disco. So why did she bother singing that song? Simple. It came close to (but not quite) representing her emotional state and so, naturally, she sings the song. Needless to say, musicals that are written in this way are almost always doomed to being empty theatrical experiences. At least SNF is consistent about something!.
The rest of the cast suffers much the same fate as Orfeh. Most are competent but saddled with mediocre material. Leading man James Carpinello, the subject of many rumors and nasty gossip centered around his singing, dancing and acting ability during pre-production, is basically fine. He does, however, appear stiff during dance sequences and overdoes what sounds like a cartoonish, Bullwinkle-inspired Brooklyn accent. Opposite him is Paige Price, a fine actress with a lovely voice who does very little in the show to warrant the top billing she receives. She was absent for much of Act One and her material in Act Two (including the insipid “What Kind of Fool”) is as flimsy as the romantic tension between her character and Carpinello’s. Paul Castree, as Bobby C., Tony’s suicidal friend, shows vocal meddle throughout, but his “under duress” soliloquy--(brace yourself for this one)-“Tragedy,” is ridiculously chosen and, worse yet, idiotically staged. The final insult of Saturday Night Fever is its closing number, sung by Tony and Stephanie after the suicide of one of Tony’s best buddies. Incongruously, it follows, almost immediately, a sequence in which a distraught Tony practically beats and manhandles the girl after their undeserved victory in the disco’s dancing contest, the exciting (yeah, right) climax towards which the show has been building. The two quasi-lovers decide to “just be friends” and then go on to sing, ever-so-logically, “How Deep Is Your Love.” Go figure. Not that it’s worth it.
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