REVIEW: "SUMMER: THE DONNA SUMMER
MUSICAL," FROM A LONGTIME DS FAN WHO'S SEEN THE SHOW - Anyone who sets him
or herself up to create a musical to celebrate and shine a spotlight on both
the 43-year public career, and private and family life, of Donna Summer is
in for a daunting challenge. From her 1968 performances in "Haare" (Hair) in
Germany (youtube.com/watch?v=zWXjTDnC-100)
to her final public appearances with David Foster at Mandalay Bay on October
1, 2011 (youtube.com/watch?v=mlckkuvN7EY),
Donna Summer will be remembered by many (especially here) as one of the most
talented female singers whose career spanned both the 20th and 21st
centuries. From her soaring vocals to her perfect pitch, and that vibrant
timbre on the many sustained notes in her multi-octave range, Donna could,
and did, sing in almost every genre, rising way beyond the "Queen of Disco"
label tagged upon her early in her career. How do you, adequately and
accurately, represent someone with that kind of life on stage, in 1 hour and
45 minutes (roughly) with no intermission?
"Summer: The Donna Summer Musical" is one wild ride through one amazing
person's life. It's a show that over-celebrates "women's empowerment" (more
on that further down) and often disparages men, yet it was created by four
men: three writing the book (Robert Cary, Colman Domingo, and Des McAnuff),
and McAnuff doing double-duty as director. It's a show that offers the
A-track, B-tracks, and "wish I could forget" tracks of Donna Summer's life,
a blend of memorable highs and very dark lows. It's a show that gives three
very talented actresses star turns as they represent Donna Summer at three
stages of her life. It's unique, it's creative, it's clever in moments both
brazen and subtle, it's entertaining, and it's, at times, surprisingly
moving.
Let's first talk about what the show is not. It's not a vapid
sing-and-dance-a-long, like Mamma Mia (thank God). It's not a really, really
good cruise ship spectacle. It's not a chronological historical
retrospective. Except in a few remarkable moments, it's not a spot-on visual
and vocal match of Donna Summer. Excepting the full-length white mink fur
coat from Four Seasons of Love, it sadly passed on the opportunity to
reconstruct the attire we know and love from many Donna Summer albums, photo
shoots, and tours.
It does offer 23 Donna Summer songs, most fully performed, in its hour and
45 minutes. Among these are some of her most popular hits, some of her most
interesting and beautiful ballads, the treat of some songs Donna rarely or
never performed in live concert, and songs from her first popular album
(Love to Love You, Baby) and her last (Crayons). In many cases, the songs
are utilized as a kind of Greek chorus or backdrop to a memory from Donna's
life, whether a situation of physical abuse by a man, a suicide attempt,
implied sexual abuse by a priest when she was a child, and even the
controversial "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" comment at one concert
that exploded into the international rage of thousands of (primarily) gay
men tossing her albums, and creating a huge public relations headache that
continued for years and cut her album sales. This process leads some of the
songs fans would know to be reconfigured in new, surprising, and creative
contexts that move the plot forward, and generally work well.
All three actresses portraying Donna Summer - "Duckling Donna" Storm Lever,
"Disco Donna" Ariana DeBose, and "Diva Donna" LaChanze - gave superb vocal
performances, but (especially at the start) I was frequently thinking "Donna
Summer - often imitated, never duplicated" as one sounded like Eartha Kitt
singing Donna Summer in one number, and another sounded (pretty remarkably)
like Lea Michele from "Glee" singing another Donna Summer number. But an
interesting thing happened on the way to the ending.
About halfway into the show, LaChanze - in conversation - starts to sound
more like the real Donna Summer. And when she is solo at the piano in one
number near the end, both talking and singing, for a few minutes you
actually start to believe you're seeing Donna Summer, and hearing her sing
"Friends Unknown" - one of Donna Summer's best ballads, written for her
fans, and performed in a knockout theatrical moment, one of the best
performances in the show.
The ensemble, primarily women - including a rare-for-Broadway all-female
orchestra - are collectively superb. Many of the actresses do double and
triple-duty in their roles, and find ways to make the characters
distinguishable from each other. The show could partly be said to be
reverse-Shakespearean at points, since several of the male parts are also
played by women, and gender fluidity is represented, in scenes where it
feels integral and not tacked-on to be politically correct.
Along with the acting and music, Sergio Trujillo - yep, another man - did a
fine job as Choreographer. A big problem in several Broadway shows is the
excessive inclusion of gratuitous dance numbers, where they don't feel
appropriate nor integral. Donna Summer used dancers in many of her concerts
and videos, so here, it's historically appropriate. My partner was a
classical ballet dancer, and he said the choreography in the show was
excellent. I agree - it felt like just enough, and was uniformly well
performed. In the staging, large moving digital screens give us the "wow"
visual factor of some live concerts, but are utilized to reflecting portions
of Donna Summer's eyes, face, and expressions as the show moves along, as if
she's watching over the show at it plays out.
Where I had problems with the show is where it didn't feel true to who I
believe Donna Summer was, or how she presented herself publicly. Donna
called herself "all about love," and that was for everyone - men, women,
whomever. Donna never came across as highly political, and also very
private. So to have Donna talk about "women being paid half of what men are"
in a pointed moment in a press conference, or to brag about taking on the
male-dominated record industry by suing to take control of her career (both
of which appear as moments on stage) just doesn't feel appropriate in the
context of portraying her onstage, regardless of her actual feelings on
these points. Though it was true that the machinations of many men were
integral and important to catapult Donna Summer to stardom, the only man in
the show who comes across as decent and kind is her husband Bruce Sudano.
And Donna was far from the first female singer to sue the record industry.
Martha Reeves is on record saying "They call me Martha Sue Reeves because
I'm suing everybody," and that was well before Donna (as one example).
There are a few things I would like to see changed. I would have liked to
see the show tack on another 15 minutes, and explore two other major moments
in Donna's later life: her decision to record a new album after a 17-year
absence, and how her personal belief that few would remember or want to see
her was totally unfounded; and her decision to take on the Art on Ice shows
in Europe after being diagnosed with lung cancer. For those here who have
never seen these Art on Ice clips on YouTube - also featuring a truly superb
live orchestra - here is one of the best ones:
youtube.com/watch?v=_I-6rMLKmW8
Also, while the show downplayed the "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve"
controversy, I would have cleared it up, once and for all. For the first
time in 30+ years, we get the reasoning behind her making this comment. Is
it the truth? Is it creative license? Who knows? I know it led to knock-out,
drag-out arguments between me defending Donna, and fellow fans decrying her,
not to mention what her religious turn did among her gay fans. I either
would have had her simply sing her song "Forgive Me" - which would have
given many of us the Donna Summer moment we wanted, but would have meant
more actually coming from her while she was alive. Or, I would have kept it
as it is, but added one more element: have LaChanze say a line, "Well, let
me not tell you about it, but show you," drop down a large screen, and show
the footage of Donna Summer in tears at a flurry of microphones at that
raucous press conference. I saw a few seconds of this footage years after
this incident, meaning film footage of that conference exists. Find it, get
the rights to use it, put a full minute of it on a large screen on stage,
make it the only actual appearance by Donna Summer in the show, and
exonerate her, once and for all.
One more thing to add on this point: seeing a audience, including many gay
men, applauding the performance of "I Believe In Jesus," after all WE'VE
been put through by the Catholic Church and are STILL being put through (go
look up "First Amendment Defense Act" on YouTube, and get ready to sigh
"Here we go AGAIN."), was both healing and heartening to watch.
Finally, a minor criticism: In the performance we saw, for some reason one
actress, I believe DeBose, starts walking around with a
cane* throughout the show. Did she twist a leg and need it to make it
through the performance? Did she have a fashion faux pas with a broken high
heel that couldn't be repaired? Whatever, Donna only publicly used a cane
once - in the choreography with her "I Remember Yesterday" performances. The
cane was really distracting, and the actress should take a hiatus until she
no longer needs it.
I saw people in the audience both near tears and crying at points in this
show, and some of the scenes (and her experiences) are heartbreaking.
Earlier, I referred to moments both brazen and subtle in the show, and this
was one of them. (SPOILER ALERT - SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T
SEEN THE SHOW.) In the scene where she is singing No More Tears, which is
utilized as backdrop to a physical abuse incident, Donna at one moment in
the scuffle cold-cocks the perpetrator on the chin with what looked like a
framed photo of Barbra Streisand. Nice subtle touch.
Despite all the ups and downs, the show smartly ends on an upbeat party
note, with high-energy performances of "Hot Stuff" and "Last Dance" to send
people out of the theater singing. Definitely get up and dance for "Last
Dance"!
Memory does not often come to us in chronological sequence - one song
triggers one memory, another a different mood in time. When creating a
painting (and Donna painting her abstract paintings is portrayed on stage),
one doesn't start in the left corner and move to the right, but jumps around
as it seems right in the process. This show takes a similar approach in its
construction. It is neither haphazard nor confusing, especially for fans
familiar with her life history. The best thing about this approach is that
you know the story, but (if you don't look at the song list in the
Playbill), you don't know what's coming next - which makes it mesmerizing to
watch.
Absent a long-awaited mounting of the musical Donna Summer wrote, "Ordinary
Girl," this show is the closest we're likely to get to seeing a mostly
realistic portrayal of Donna Summer on stage once more. "Summer: The Donna
Summer Musical" is a complex portrait of, and moving tribute to, a
remarkable woman who indeed was, for many of us, "the soundtrack of our
lives." Honor her memory, go, and prepare yourself for the roller coaster
highs and lows that were scenes in the painting of her life.
- Written by David Messineo, after the 3pm Broadway matinee performance on
Sunday, April 29, 2018. About the Reviewer: David Messineo is among the 30
longest-serving literary magazine publishers and poetry editors still active
in America: three-time winner in the national American Literary Magazine
Awards, and recipient of a 2009 New Jersey State Jefferson Award for Public
Service. He owns all of Donna Summer's albums, and has seen her in concert
several times. A resident of New Jersey, he has been a Broadway buff for
decades, and has seen shows on Broadway every year since 1978.
*Editor's Note: Ariana DeBose was suffering from an
ankle injury and went on anyway, but with a cane. She did not use the cane
in previous shows. |