“She Worked Hard for the Money”
Three huge disco balls wait patiently in place before
dropping in late in the show to turn the Lunt-Fontanne into Studio 54 during
its heyday and dazzle the revved up fanboys and fangirls at Summer: The Donna Summer Musical,
Broadway’s latest contribution to the mounting list of pop-music jukebox
musicals. As a cast of nearly two-dozen singer-dancer-musician-actors blast out
“Last Dance,” led by three sequined performers representing the eponymous Disco
Queen, only the folks in wheelchairs don’t rise to clap their hands and
boogie in place.  |
| Storm Lever. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Among the 23 numbers—during whose renditions the audience is
invited to sing or even dance along—are “The Queen Is Back,” “I Feel Love,” “Love
to Love You Baby,” “l Remember Yesterday,” “MacArthur Park,” “No More Tears
(Enough Is Enough,” “On the Radio,” “She Works Hard for the Money,” “I Believe
in Jesus,” “Dim All the Lights,” “Hot
Stuff,” and so on. Even “White Boys” from the musical Hair makes an entrance.
 |
| Ariana DeBose, LaChanze, Storm Lever. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Some tunes are sung only partially, others all the way
through. Too bad Bill Brendle and Ron Melrose’s orchestrations have a ramped-up
Broadway sound that makes several songs sound like hard-thumping variations of
others. A healthy assortment is
performed to Sergio Trujillo’s slick choreography; most look like expensive music
videos, an appropriate influence in this context. A welcome twist is having all
the chorus dancers played by women, some of them cross-dressing.
Hair, you may know,
played a major role in the young singer’s life when, as Sheila, she
traveled to Germany in the early 70s with a touring version of the show. We
learn this in the biographical interstices weaving the songs together in what
is essentially a splashy concert.
 |
| Ariana Debose and company. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
The sketchy dialogue scenes (book by Colman Domingo, Robert Cary, and director Des McAnuff) touch only the highlights
of Summer’s life, much of it outlined in her 2003 autobiography, Ordinary Girl: The Journey. Occasionally,
an applause-generating remark about women’s equality jumps out to show Summer’s
commitment to that issue.
The script tracks her life from her teens (as one of seven siblings)
to her death, turning her remarkable success story into a familiar succession
of brief scenes, with her songs intended to somehow connect to them. Thus, for
example, when record producer Neil Bogart (Drew Wildman Foster) dies, the next
song we hear is “Dim All the Lights.”
We learn of Donna’s strict, churchgoing family’s resistance
to the show business life she’s chosen (including her dropping out of high
school just before graduating); her free-loving, European romances; her
marriage to and divorce from Helmuth (Foster), the abusive Austrian who fathered
her first daughter, then married and divorced her; her stable marriage to singer-songwriter
Bruce Sudano (Jared Zirilli), father of two of her three daughters; her
recording career, with the same record business complications all these bios
seem to encounter; her financial setbacks; her use of “blue pills”; her
rediscovering Jesus; her accomplishments as a painter; and her learning of the
illness that would kill her.
It all plays out in Robert Brill’s open stage design, framed
by an illuminated false proscenium on which place names speed by (often, too
quickly) as the story shifts territory. Numerous square and rectangular units
fly in and out displaying brightly colored, artfully designed projections (by
Sean Niewenhuis), including the occasional eye, nose, or mouth (these come
together neatly as a Summer’s portrait during “Last Dance”). Downstage, three
square columns rise and fall on elevator traps with one or the other of the
stars standing on them.
 |
| LaChanze. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Howard Binkley creates the dazzling lighting, and Paul
Tazewell adds his Great White Way touch to the everyday clothes and the razzle
dazzle of all the production numbers and glam diva costumes. It looks like a
good time to be in the sequin business, just as it is for wigmakers like Charles
G. LaPointe who have so many actors in multiple roles to cover. One can imagine
the controlled chaos of backstage changes in an episodic show like this.
Summer: The Donna
Summer Musical is not destined to be a classic, nor is it even in the class
of something similar, like Jersey Boys.
Its critical reception has not been overwhelmingly positive. Surprisingly, two
veteran critics I met before the show even told me they weren’t looking forward
to it. I don’t know how they felt afterward but I, despite the show’s
weaknesses, couldn’t prevent myself from liking it. My middle-aged daughter,
the niche theatregoer the show is aiming at, loved it.
 |
| Ariana DeBose. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Donna Summer’s music may never have been intended for
Broadway but, if you like her songs you’re going to have a good time. In the
fall, another Broadway show based on a famous singer’s life and music will be
upon us. It, too, will feature three women in the title role—someone named
Cher.
Until then, two words: “Let’s Dance.”
OTHER VIEWPOINTS:
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
206 W. 46th St., NYC
Open run