THEATER REVIEW - "Saturday Night Fever, the Musical"

THEATER REVIEW

“Saturday Night Fever, the Musical” - Produced by: Theatre Three – Port Jefferson

Reviewed by: Jeb Ladouceur

According to Nik Cohn’s 1975 New York Magazine article titled, ‘The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,’ and the Norman Wexler screenplay that it inspired two years later (when the film gave us John Travolta), “Wanting to be like someone else is a waste of the person you are.” This pithy observation (generally attributed to Kurt Kobain) is the sort of forceful reflection that runs through ‘Saturday Night Fever, the Musical’ being performed at Port Jefferson’s Theatre Three thru June 24^th.

The story revolves around Tony Manero, a teenaged paint store employee (played by the multi-talented Bobby Peterson) and poor Manero’s humdrum occupation, like those of his bored-to-death peers in Brooklyn, is getting him nowhere. Tony’s one claim to fame is reflected in the adoration of his dance-absorbed neighbors who admire the young hoofer’s unquestioned expertise on the dance floor, and where Manero luxuriates in their idolizing him at the ‘2001 Odyssey Disco’ every weekend.

In a society where the Bay Ridge Neighborhood is akin to a medieval Dukedom in the shadow of the Verrazano Bridge (and just as treacherous, as one violent scene proves to be), all that the reigning Tony lacks is an appropriate Duchess. It’s not until the middle of Act I that Stephanie (expertly interpreted by Rachel Greenblatt) comes along, and predictably knocks him for a loop without even trying.

As things progress, both Tony and Manhattanite wannabe Stephanie are perfectly at home singing and dancing to the score of ‘Saturday Night Fever, the Musical,’ whose featured numbers consist primarily of songs written by The Bee Gees (‘Stayin’ Alive’ – ‘How Deep is Your Love’ – ‘More Than a Woman’ – etc.) Worthy of special note is Beth Whitford (playing Annette) whose rendition of ‘If I Can’t Have You’ is an absolute show-stopper.

But there’s more to this musical than singing and dancing … the plot is a silky-smooth combination of bleakness and brightness … love and loathing … tenderness and tragedy. So effortlessly do the principal characters play off of one another during the dialogue of the production that the near-capacity evening audience last weekend seemed not even to breathe during the more intimate conversations of the key players. The pacing and volume of such colloquies, more than anything else, reveal the actors’ competence, and they also speak to the proficiency of the director (Jeffrey Sanzel).

In this regard, it was refreshing to sit back in the comfortable 100-year-old playhouse in Port Jefferson and hear the theatrically articulate Rachel Greenblatt deliver her spoken lines with perfect modulation and inflection. Every stage production is spearheaded by one actor whose cadence and tone seem to inspire the entire company, and in ‘Fever’ it’s Greenblatt. The young woman has blossomed into a performer of the first rank.

Kudos, too, are due the twenty other members of the large featured cast. There isn’t a disappointment in the enthusiastic lot. As for Jeffrey Hoffman’s seven-piece orchestra, it’s likely that The Bee Gees themselves would have cheered the talented musicians lustily at the final curtain. Lighting (Robert W. Henderson, Jr.), Scenery (Randall Parsons), Costumes (Ronald Green III), and Choreography (Whitney Stone) are all first-rate. Accordingly everyone who avails themselves of the opportunity, is sure to enjoy a magnificent experience at ‘Broadway on Main Street’ in Port Jeff … no matter what day or night they choose to catch ‘The Fever.’

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Award-winning writer, Jeb Ladouceur is the author of a dozen novels, and his theater and book reviews appear in several major L.I. publications. His recent hit, THE GHOSTWRITERS, explores the bizarre relationship between the late Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Ladouceur’s newly completed thriller, THE SOUTHWICK INCIDENT, debuted this month, and was introduced at the Smithtown Library on May 21st. The book involves a radicalized Yale student and his CIA pursuers. Mr. Ladouceur’s revealing website is www.JebsBooks.com