by Howard Pechet
Directed by Anne Allan
At Stage West, Mississauga
November 22, 2007-February 3, 2008

   Most disco music is junk, though it has a softer side with fine melodic shadings—as in the cases of the Bee Gees or Stevie Wonder—and some of it—Boney M., Patsy Gallant, Donna Summer, Rod Stewart, KC and the Sunshine Band—can make you want to get up and boogie too. Certainly, that’s what you will probably want to do at Stage West during the course of Fever, Howard Pechet’s anthology of disco music, all gussied up by Samantha Burson’s set design, Kimberly Catton’s costumes (bell bottoms, lava shirts, platform shoes and all), and some performers who race through about 70 numbers (or snatches from them) without overstaying their welcome. There are flaws, of course: Pechet’s ticker-tape history is simplistic and sparse, some of the performers (especially the women) are merely singers in outlandish wigs, and their screeching (which is their general idea of phrasing) is hardly the stuff of good vocalizing. In an age where necrophilia is taken as an expression of nostalgia (witness the zillion Elvis and Marilyn wannabes), mimicry is considered to be a high art even when it is low in accuracy. So, it is the case with the Bee Gee impersonators—led by grizzled Anthony Mattina, whose falsetto gets falser by every register—or with the women who often seem like weak tea rather than red-hot lava, though there are outstanding exceptions in the cases of Sonia Ndongmo’s Tina Turner or the gals in general when they finally get their groove in a big set with music by (among others) Blondie, Lady Marmelade, and Gloria Gaynor.

   Director Anne Allan and Musical Director Michael Lerner keep things lively, concocting diversions along the way (such as a good dramatization of Copacabana), tantalizing us with snatches of hits, and ensuring that each half of the show ends with a big, sensational number—a delirious parody of the Village People in the first instance and an Act Two finale that incorporates Donna Summer, Rick Dee, Abba, and Kool & the Gang, as well as a host of lesser names. Among the eye-catching performers, are acrobatic Matt Carroll as a break-dancing, strutting, splitting, back-flipping boogie boy, lanky Gerrad Everard whose hips should be donated to anyone in need of a hip-replacement, and seductive David Lopez who has star quality stamped all over his sensuous body. The least you could say about disco is that, love it or hate it, it happened, man. And the show allows you to revel in that fact, though you will need strong ears and a disposition for pounding beats.

photos:

pic 1 (L-R): Tiffany Deriveau; Lori Nuic, Sonia Ndongomo, and Kristen Peace

pic 2: Matt Carroll

pic 3 (L-R): Kevin Dennis, Anthony Mattina, and Matt Wagman


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