Theatre in Review: Disaster! (Nederlander Theatre)When the new musical at the Nederlander was first announced, one might have legitimately wondered if everyone involved might not be courting theatrical disaster. A spoof of the Irwin Allen films of the 1970s, with a playlist of the period's cheesiest pop hits, it had enjoyed a lively, well-reviewed Off Broadway run in a cut-down production that seemed well-suited to its sketch-comedy ambitions. Did it really need a 1,235-seat Broadway house, a scaled-up design, and a major-name cast? Wouldn't it turn top-heavy and tip over, like the ship in The Poseidon Adventure? As Sister Mary Downy, Disaster's resident nun, might say, O ye of little faith. With a considerably retooled book and score and quite possibly the gamest cast in town, Disaster! proves to be an evening of unalloyed hilarity. The writers, Seth Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick, have adapted, to their own gleeful ends, the formula of such demi-classics as The Towering Inferno and Earthquake: Create a barely plausible ticking-bomb situation, stuff it with as many stars in turgid plotlines as possible, and shake and bake. Disaster! sets its cast of characters on the maiden voyage of the Barracuda Floating Casino, which has been stripped of virtually every safety feature by its chiseling owner. This glittery event is threatened by an "extremely destructive geologic event," and, as was always the case in these films, the voice of reason is ignored. Soon a cross section of movie stereotypes is acting up a storm, their traumas paced by a disco-tastic collection of '70s chartbusters ranging from "Hot Stuff" to "Hooked on a Feeling." Unlike the writers of some jukebox musicals, Rudetsky and Plotnick are scrupulous about fitting their songs into the story line, which is harder than it looks. It's easy to drop, say, "I Will Survive" into this disaster scenario; only the truly committed could find a plot-related reason to include Chicago's jazz-rock mini-masterpiece "25 or 6 to 4." Basically a two-hour Carol Burnett sketch, Disaster! is directed with iron discipline by Plotnick, who knows that this sort of nonsense must be played absolutely straight if it isn't going to become tedious. It certainly helps that he has a deluxe cast of pros who never raise a bead of sweat in pursuit of a laugh. As Tony, the ship's corrupt, lecherous owner, Roger Bart is the incarnation of sleaze; it takes a brave man to play whole scenes with a pair of sharks attached to his arms, and Bart pulls it off with tremendous élan. Kerry Butler slyly underplays as Marianne, the crusading, but conflicted, feminist reporter, suddenly thrown back together with Chad, her cast-off ex. ("I probably should have said something first instead of just not showing up at the chapel," she concedes.) Butler makes the most of Helen Reddy's nutty feminist anthem "I Am Woman," interrupted by a downbeat stretch of Carly Simon's "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," creating a moment of mini-psychodrama. As Chad, Adam Pascal, whose voice has only grown richer and more resonant with the years, lifts cheeseball classics like "I Can't Live (If Livin' is Without You") to a whole other level. Rachel York is Jackie, the ship's vacant singing star, worn out from pining for Tony and trying to wrangle her twin children, a boy and girl, both played, in sleight-of-hand fashion, by Baylee Littrell. (When one character confesses that he lost his wife to a volcano on their honeymoon, Jackie replies, "Well, when life gives you lemons!") Others include Max Crumm as a waiter whose way with the ladies is likely to get him a cease-and-desist order, and Lacretta Nicole as a bankrupt disco diva. For sheer, sustained riotousness, two performances stand out. Faith Prince excels in the Shelley Winters slot as Shirley, a dying matron from the outer boroughs, whose symptoms -- including frantic winking, pelvic thrusts, and Tourettes-like outbursts -- are wildly misconstrued by the other characters. (Kevin Chamberlin is a fine companion as her husband, especially in the show's one genuinely touching moment.) Jennifer Simard slays continuously as the clinically depressed, gambling-addicted Sister Mary, whose idea of pastoral care is to inform Shirley that menopause is "one of God's many punishments towards women." Even in this deadpan company, Simard lowballs her delivery, resulting in several panic-inducing moments, the pearliest of which comes when, gazing alternately at the heavens and a one-armed bandit, she offers a tortured rendition of "Torn Between Two Lovers." Riding herd on them all is the poker-faced Rudetsky as Ted, the "noted disaster expert," who has an emotional block, a mission to save mankind, and a yen for Jackie. In a supreme moment of peril, Ted, who is afraid of heights, has to cross a steel beam to rescue Jackie and the kids, a sequence set, of course, to "Nadia's Theme." (This is probably the first musical that should have its cast album sold by K-Tel Records, but the numbers are delivered with brio, affection, and not a little wickedness, especially in a three-way version of "Feelings" featuring Butler, Pascal, and Rudetsky.) Plotnick's staging moves fast enough to keep the fun from running thin while simultaneously making room for each cast member to show off his or her expert timing. JoAnn M. Hunter's choreography is full of authentic Saturday Night Fever moves. Tobin Ost's sets feature the supergraphics and twinkle lights employed on tackier cruise ships; he also pulls off a number of cartoon-like gags, including an aquarium filled with hungry piranhas, an overhead view of passengers spinning out of control in a tsunami, and, his niftiest coup, the moment when the ship's interior turns upside down. William Ivey Long's costumes constitute a catalogue raisonné of '70s-era fashion crimes; he really goes to town with York, who, inexplicably, but amusingly, appears in a different Bob Mackie-ish confection in each scene. Jeff Croiter's lighting pulses to the score's disco beat. Mark Menard provides rumbling earthquake effects and thunder with true Sensurround flair. Off Broadway, Disaster! ran out of gas somewhere in the middle of Act II. Here, the laughs come steadily until the finale, which features the surviving characters sunnily dangling in mid-air while clutching life savers. Nobody is going to mistake this show for Hamilton, but it provides a two-hour holiday for theatregoers in search of smart, shameless fun. And, if you didn't know it before, you'll learn how hard it is to get "Hot Stuff" out of your head. -- David Barbour 
|
