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Stage Review: CLO lives 'La Vida Copa' with panache
Monday, June 19, 2000 By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic
Aiming a determined forefinger at my chest, she demanded, "You give us a good review! "
And that was before the show, during the festivities leading up to Saturday's grand opening of "Barry Manilow's Copacabana." By "us" she probably meant Pittsburgh as well as its CLO, because the CLO is the lead producer of this American premiere of Manilow's revamped musical, which plays two more weeks before heading off on a lengthy national tour, bearing our town's name on its masthead.
The Barry Manilow Fan Club ladies were a shade more indirect: "You be nice," one said. "We know your e-mail address!"
That was at the post-show party, where we all got a slice of Barry's birthday cake. The Latin rhythms and general hilarity were still echoing through the Cultural District when I left after midnight.
Which is to say, this is not your average CLO season-opener: Pittsburgh Pride is on the line. And Saturday's party was such a bash, its bubbly cheer and sense of special occasion shed glamour on the show itself. So did Barry's curtain call appearance, dispensing praise, enjoying an audience-cast rendition of "Happy Birthday" and then joining in to start the cast on the title song.
But from now on, audiences won't get the gala or Barry. So I have to focus on the musical itself, and the standard of comparison here is not the usual one-week CLO production but a full-scale, pre- or post-Broadway tour.
As such, "Copa" is a (qualified) success. It is feel-good entertainment with plenty of splash and the kind of score that you actually find yourself humming when you wake up the next morning -- not just the title song but "Man Wanted" and "Sweet Heaven," to pick two that keep tickling my memory.
Indeed, it's something of a triumph that given Saturday's rhinestone-bedazzled send-off, the show did not disappoint -- all the hoopla could have set up the audience for a fall. But "Copa" very gaily bids us welcome, as determined to please as was the nightclub it celebrates.
In addition to much of the score, its attractions include David Woolard's vivid, clever costumes and lights by Donald Holder that are so dazzling as to compensate for its ho-hum (stripped to tour) sets. Then there's the story, a cartoonish tale of love and danger, pleasing stars and a great ensemble featuring state-of-art leggy showgirls who dance a whole lot better than those display chorines ever did in '40s nightclubs.
The frame story by Manilow, Jack Feldman and Bruce Sussman (the latter two wrote the lyrics, too) is about a present-day song-writer, Stephen, who imagines Lola, a standard show biz innocent, arriving in 1947 New York. Though her auditions for Broadway are comically disastrous, she does better at the Copa, aided by Tony, a supportive young songwriter; Gladys, an experienced former Copa girl; and Sam, the bark-is-worse-than-his-bite manager. The fantasizing Stephen imagines himself as Tony, of course.
Enter the villain, Rico, mob-connected boss of the Tropicana in Havana, who abducts Lola, to the jealous dismay of his Latin sweetie, Conchita. So the chase is on. The frame story largely disappears along the way, but for a fantasy number where songwriter Stephen gets to sing and dance with his creation, a la Pygmalion. After the Havana episode ends rather anticlimactically, the story returns to present day with a twist that is satisfying and funny without being a surprise.
Well, the whole story is Stephen's fantasy, and that is both attraction and problem. He (that is to say, Manilow and company) imagines the story as a return to the supposedly simple pleasures of 1940s movie musicals, which I guess explains what may seem like glitches in plotting or realization.
But it's hard to be sure. For example, early in Stephen's fantasy, before we've figured out who Tony is, he is featured dancing in a Copa nightclub sequence. Since Franc D'Ambrosio, who is otherwise a golden-voiced and appealing Stephen/Tony, is no song-and-dance man, this is either a mistake or, because it's part of Stephen's fantasy, funny -- but that's never made clear.
Similarly, Tony and then Rico instantly fall for Lola, but it isn't clear why -- not because Darcie Roberts isn't a pretty, talented Lola, but because she's been directed by David Warren to play such a caricature hick hopeful that it's hard to imagine anyone thinking her anything but funny.
OK, I know, I know, it's just a cliche of the form. But this suggests an indecision at the heart of the show: Is this version of a movie musical imitation or parody -- funny or romantic? "Copa" lacks the will to make as much comic hay out of plot and character absurdities as its double image (looking back at the '40s) seems to suggest -- and for an idea of the wit that would require, think of the musical "City of Angels."
For example, Beth McVey's Gladys performs the heck out of her Act 1 "When You're a Copa Girl," but only wittier lyrics would make it as funny as it wants to be. The Act 2 comic sequence, "Who Am I Kidding?," which features Gladys along with Gavin MacLeod's avuncular Sam, is more successful.
Sure, some of the numbers are intended as loving spoofs of the period, but the show's real instinct -- and this is Manilow's doing, no doubt -- is always to put heart before comedy. His strongest pieces are the upbeat love songs.
This explains the casting of the charming D'Ambrosio, who squeezes every juicy tone out of his songs. Roberts sticks right with him, and her comedy and dancing are entertaining even when they seem beside the point.
Philip Hernandez's Rico is such a persuasive villain that I was disappointed the audience didn't boo. Terry Burrell is justifiably an audience favorite as Conchita, although she is also inhibited by the plot -- her "iAy Caramba!" is another number that falls between dazzler and comic cliche.
I guess that's also the excuse for the climactic "El Bravo" number, which just seems half thought-out, with Tony's "rescue" neither grand nor funny. Wayne Cilento's choreography is much more successful in the unambiguous entertainments: "I Gotta Be Bad" is a dynamite number for those great chorines.
I saw the previous version of "Copa" in London in 1994, and a quick comparison indicates that, while keeping the same general shape, the creative team has added three new songs and dropped three while moving a couple of others. It's a lot better show than it was.
It may seem odd that the title song finally emerges fully only at the end, as part of the curtain call. But why not, since we all know it before the curtain goes up?
Those who need to know should be warned that strobe lights are used.
The bottom line? Of course I'd go -- it's fun, and it's like rooting for the Pirates. As to that e-mail address, it's crawson@post-gazette.com.
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