Agree wholeheartedly with the review. This kind of trifle will do all right at first, but, as we see now, it is tanking and closing early. It's just too light. People enjoy sitting in the audience and singing the songs of the artist they love and came to support, but don't mistake that for a quality Broadway experience. The book is horrible. This is down there with Margaritaville for pure, manipulated, dollar-driven snake oil sales. I left feeling ripped off and a little angry. I think there was no other real intention behind this than ultimately a stripped down, cash-cow , touring version for the rubes. It won't remain in any of the small venues long enough for word to get out.
Tell your friends now: save your money. Go see a real musical.
Mr. Green is right on the money. This is a bargain basement version of what really might have been. Not a fan in any way of the three versions of DS, and it needed an editor - one with a hatchet, not a scalpel.
This show's popularity and whatever charms it manages to work on the audience are, I suspect, due in part to some of the same reasons "Mamma Mia" was a hit: When the musical artist(s) in question are either unwilling or unable to perform on stage again, the jukebox musical is the closest the audience can ever get to experiencing a concert - or a celebration of the artist's music. And Summer's death was such a surprise for so many that I think that even if the entire 1:40 was just a boombox playing her music and a photo of her on an easel, you'd still have folks raving about how it made them feel.
3
When the mirror ball dropped and the confetti got in my eyes and the entire audience started singing Last Dance, I knew SUMMER was casting a magic spell...for a couple of hours I needed that.
3
Overall, I enjoyed the musical. It was fun, had great energy and a good deal.
I left with the thought she was somewhat disconnected to the music that made her the "Queen of Disco" . Also the remarks she made toward the gay community actually made me more sad after the musical. It downplayed it and tried to make a ridiculous excuse. The musical seemed to really want to make her some saint.
I still love her music but less in love with her as a person. I felt that before the musical and her story on stage didn't change my perception.
2
We just saw the play over the memorial day weekend.
If you are a fan of disco and more specifically Donna Summer it’s a no brainer to see this production.
Don’t be put off by the critical reviews. This play was pure fun, interspersed with some poignant (and interesting) moments in Donna Summer’s life.
The leads and the cast were great. The production was excellent.
It was a fun time. An hour and forty minutes without an intermission.
There was some messaging but nothing too intrusive.
The audience loved it and when we went outside there were people standing in the little outside alcoves singing her songs.
Was it a little like a concert; yes. And please tell me what’s wrong with that.
Broadway is experiencing tremendous revenues and the good news is that there are many types of shows.
Take your pick. If you want something heavy go see something else.
If you want to enjoy the music and productions and come out singing see the show.
The last number, as usual, brought the audience to their feet.
I, for one, and sick and tired of “critics” denigrating so called bubble gum musicals.
There’s nothing wrong with pure entertainment and having fun on Broadway.
3
OK, so this play was not "Beautiful" or "Jersey Boys" it was the story of a African American female artist trying to make it and succeeding! I saw this play on the first matinee before it opened. It was very exciting! I agree there could have more made of her story, but the music and the singing of course carried it away. It commemorates a very special time for me of New York City in the 70's. I was dancing in the aisles at the end and also crying. I would see it again.
2
Ok, now this could be producing genius, or just incredible luck of location: “SUMMER announces after-party at Bond 45 following every performance.”
And I’ve got to assume this means your SUMMER ticket gets you in. And of course, “Bond 45” is as you might have guessed from its name is on 46th Street, an easy walk from theater.
1
So happy to see the positive comments here. "Summer" is joyous and should bee seen. I am excited for the TONY nominations for LaChanze and Ariana DeBose -- well earned and well deserved.
2
Congratulations to LaChanze for another Tony Nomination! She's an equally kind and generous person and so deserving! Can't wait to see the show!
2
I really enjoyed this musical at the La Jolla Playhouse before it went to Broadway. As a gay fan just coming out in the late 1970s, the show doesn't address what her music meant to a world of freedom before AIDS hit the community.
The musical deserved much better than this review. If you remember the Seventies as a time of being young and free, you will enjoy the music. LaChanze steals the show, the other Donnas seem to frame the story.
Younger gays will appreciate the story and the music. People were dancing in the aisles in San Diego. Don't miss this show because of this review.
4
Since people may look back at this thread many years from now - is it Ok this late to noted: How exciting that the Tonys didn't overlook "Summer" especially some of the performers (and those not seeming to be by default). Maybe it'll feel all right to see it after all; better start limbering up to get up and down to dance in place or in the aisles in a few weeks.
tune of "She Works Hard for the Money"
They work hard for the Tony
So hard, no baloney!
They're a long shot to win
But nominations feel so right! All right!
4
I went to a really good pizza place and ordered the steak. Then I wrote a review about the shortcomings of the steak and said you can get better steaks at restaurants dedicated to steak, mentioning in passing that everyone else in the joint really loved the pizza.
So, yeah, if you want the Next Important American Musical, or even a canonical bio-play about Donna Summer and her times, look elsewhere. If on the other hand you want to enjoy some serious star power x 3 in a big-time Broadway wrapper, and dance and sing and get a little choked up and then dance some more as the confetti comes down, then Summer is pretty great.
5
Perfect! Speaking truth to power: breaking the pile-on with wisdom and grace.
And yes, the performances are non-stop fabulous! Kudos to the director and the entire talented design team too. Yup, "summer is pretty great."
THE AUDIENCE LOVES THIS SHOW! IT WILL BRING JOY FOR YEARS!!
3
Wow This review irks the heck out of me! It is smug and nasty, feels like it sets out to ruin careers and reputations. I don't know what performance Green saw, but the preview I attended last week had people singing in the aisles. The audience was joyous, a real LOVE FEST! Not really knowing the Donna Summer canon I had no idea what to expect. Was so taken with the joyous mood in the theater, got caught up in the swirl of it. My take: the Jesse Green review was unnecessarily brutal, disparaging and dismissive. Not just of the show itself, but of the PEOPLE who love it - the "ordinary folk" who will flock to it and dance in the aisles. Will make millions and make millions happy doing it! Remember the WICKED reviews? AND the TONY slight? So much for that envious vitriol.
Green felt high-handed, his complaints a kind of intellectual arrogance. I despise that ego rage in the theater! This show does not pretend to be a scholarly or deeply dug psychological tome. It is an entertainment filled with magical musical moments that give joy. The expectation is one of experiencing that joy and it delivers, even in the context of a hard life simply threaded. Why cast such vitriol on years of dedicated, hard work? It's an abuse of the power of words.
The Vulture critic really captures SUMMER: The audience “comes for the music - and perhaps theatergoers like me have our own cynicism to reckon with in the face of a fan’s earnest euphoria...It’s a pretty damn good time.”
PARTY! ! GO!!
5
I saw this in La Jolla last November. It needed a lot of work before going to Broadway. But, in their hurry to beat Cher they failed to improve it at all. What's the point of an out-of-town tryout if you aren't going to learn from it? As a gay fan, I would have loved a sexy male ensemble showing me just why so many gays went nuts over Donna Summer. They used women as men, the biggest mistake for this particular show as women were not her biggest fans.
7
Even with a number from the show done on Good Morning America a few weeks ago, it was clear that the show was not good. It took away any desire I might have had to see it.
2
Interesting, that it was that same GMA show that make our out of town friends say they wanted to see it. Maybe if La Chanze goes on the road with it after her Broadway time is over, two weeks here and two weeks there, it might go well for them.
I gather they don't give a real lot of play to the last years of her home life, where no one in her neighborhood knew who she was because she wanted that kind of life as Mrs. Sudano. My mom said a lady she’d played cards with at the local Casita senior center in Florida said her son was living across the street from Donna Summer for years and had no idea until after Donna passed away, though they’d spoken many times and she and her husband were so nice. (That sounds like that could be a play in itself in the right hands. But really, no one heard her name was Mrs. Sudano, and knew her husband?)
2
Correction to my previous comment: They saw the performances on "The Today Show, " not "GMA."
The show is terrible; the critic (Jesse Green) is not. I commend him for his insight, courage to write so intelligently and describe it so specifically.
I am a long time fan of Des and he is brilliant with theatre. Somewhere he got off track with this show.
As they say, back to the drawing boards!
8
It is ever thus. The producer and director made a fortune from Jersey Boys, even though, frankly, it wasn’t that great. So they tried to repeat the formula. But art doesn’t really work that way and greed is a poor substitute for real artistic ambition.
9
I don't know about the show, but "Storm Lever" has to be the greatest name ever on Broadway.
5
Now we're used to his name from his subsequent hit career, but back in the day "Meat Loaf" was quite a Playbill name. (Wasn't it Clive Barnes who called him "Mr. Loaf?")
PS I might have asked before, but are you the forward-thinking theatre critic (with that very name) from the Brooklyn College newspaper. If so, though I don't recall what I had for dinner last night, I recall arguing with you in the 1970s (in I hope a fun way) on the Nostrand Avenue bus about "The Grand Tour." The years have certainly made me reassess that show, whose light touch on the serious subject had made me uncomfortable at 19, but I feel you certainly called that one as unjustly under-appreciated, that theater sometimes had to draw people in to make its serious point. (I think you, if it's you, said something like when a musical feels like education, no one will come.)
2
I saw the show on the last weekend of previews and agree with much of Mr Greene’s review. However, as a gay man and a huge fan of hers, the show allowed me a cathartic moment with Donna that I wasn’t able to have after her untimely death. My husband (a bigger fan than I) wanted this experience to touch her once again, even if imperfectly. We danced in the aisles at the end and left the theater with hearts buoyed by LaChanze, although we were both perplexed by having women play men throughout the show. That was very odd.
1
I am deadly tired of the jukebox bio-musical. It is to musical theatre what Vegas' Bellagio is to Italy; a pale, fake, and vulgar imitation.
23
Not the Bellagio, but almost next door - Cher live at Caesars Palace was magic, and worth the almost full body search to get into the Colosseum.
And looking ahead, Stephanie Block as Cher – that feels so right, even it just comes close to her Liza in Boy From Oz.
Tune of “The Way of Love” (1970’s Cher)
When we find a show, that we like a lot
Since we love the songs, and don’t mind the plot.
When the sales don’t tank, once reviews appear,
Though some may get frank, if the book’s not clear.
Know the Great White Way, is a Way of dough.
Since the songs we hum, leave us all aglow.
When we score a pair, we’re in ecstasy.
We came for one Cher, and they gave us three.
Great White Way of dough.
The Way of dough
1
@Freddie viz. Cher... how times have changed. Labour Day 1980 my dad and I spent a week in Las Vegas [my mother's fear of flying precluded her from going]. I was bored to tears the whole time... but my dad bribed some guy and got us a ringside table at the dinner show for Cher's show that night. She was brilliant, esp. considering she knew she was performing for people who didn't quite get her. There was no body search; just a two drink minimum on top of the meal.
2
Painful to watch Mr McAnuff’s career going off a cliff. He had done some truly excellent work at one time. Rarely have two vaunted stinkers passed through our La Jolla Playhouse as Summer and Escape To Margaritaville.
11
When I first heard about this show, I was excited anticipating a quality, deep examination of her interesting life with her music accentuating the story. This sounds like a train wreck designed to entertain simpletons who really just want to go to a concert. That may have worked except it sounds like you get so few of her complete songs...just a lot of snippets. Sounds like an incredibly lame show lacking any ambition. Instead of watching this show, I will enjoy her albums that had her stellar vocals backed by some incredible music and think about what could have been a great jukebox musical. Shame on those who created this show!!
3
I’m not seeing "Summer" for a few weeks, but I found a script (it might be the La Jolla version). Maybe before ”Summer” goes on the road, after “Cher Show” opens and other gifted bio-musical folk are freed up, if they could just put the “Summer” team in a conference room with the “Jersey Boys” writers to work their know-how on it (are they still good pals?) for just a few days? You can feel places for totally different equivalents in ”Summer” of the stunning gunshot moment, the wow Joe Pesce moments, the “My Eyes Adored You” tear jerker (that book set-up tore me up and teared me up), even the (though maybe morally dubious) big lift of “Oh What a Night.” Even if sometimes something may need to be fictionalized a bit. I know, the last thing anyone needs is thoughts from the peanut gallery on the internet, but "heaven knows" - it rankles somehow that Tonya Harding's life gets celebrated and Donna Summer's doesn't. :(
1
Thank you for such a well researched and articulated review. I love(d) Donna Summer as her music reflects happy memories of my dancing youth at tea dances in P'town and at the long gone Monster in Key West when the world was a lot more fun and felt a lot more optimistic
I saw her live at Caesars Palace in the late 90's but even then her major hits were long behind her and though she was an admirable performer, to me, she still sounded so much better on a dance floor's stereo system.
What a shame that this show has missed the opportunity of dramatizing Summer's life properly. Hopefully it'll happen down the road but while I wait I can put Donna's Greatest hits on the CD player, close my eyes and conjure up some good memories.
9
Rodgers and Hammerstein pioneered this American art form, teaching us that songs need to move the story. Characters at the beginning of the number should be changed in some way by the end of the song. In "Surrey With The Fringe On Top" in "Oklahoma," Laurie is testy with Curley at first, but by the end of the song, she's asleep on his shoulder. The song moved the plot. The characters' relationship changed _because of_ the song. Modern shows like "Come From Away," "Dear Evan Hansen," and "Hamilton" are written by professionals who understand that the story doesn't stop for the songs. The songs develop the story.
Jukebox musicals feature songs that do not develop the story; they stop the plot. It is pointless to shoehorn a story into a collection of pop tunes. Therefore, it's no surprise that "The Donna Summer Musical" fails to entertain. I predict the exact same reaction for Broadway-bound vehicles: "Ain't Too Proud" and "The Cher Show."
Years ago, "Beatlemania" ran at the Winter Garden for years, arguably the first "jukebox musical." No plot was attempted. Talented impersonators sang all our favorite jukebox hits by the Beatles, and audiences went home humming. Maybe when producers lose their shirts a few more times on shows with feeble plots that stop the story, they'll get the message. Just sing the songs; don't insult our intelligence with unenlightening biographies.
Better yet, encourage the authors of "Come From Away" and "Dear Evan Hansen" to give us more to see.
24
It seems this is where the technique goes back to - the first successful jukebox musical with a plot built entirely around existing popular songs seems to be the movie "Singing' in the Rain." From Wikipedia: “Singin’ In The Rain originally conceived by MGM producer Arthur Freed, the head of the "Freed Unit" responsible for turning out MGM's lavish musicals, as a vehicle for his catalog of songs written with Nacio Herb Brown…”
Mr. Freed and Mr. Brown added “Make ‘Em Laugh” (which is seen by some as an uncanny “homage” to Cole Porter’s “Be A Clown” - but no one sued, i guess they all liked each other), and “Moses Supposes” was written (by Roger Edens and Comden & Green, based on a famous tongue-twister) – and though the film wasn’t a major smash in first release, the rest is movie musical history. (when I saw it in London starring Tommy Steele, thrilling on stage too)
"Jukebox musical" = “catalog musical” if you like the show, or if you or your family are involved with the show. The "Singing' in the Rain" pre-exisiting songs were the jukebox songs in their era.
5
Something even in this negative review made my mind go back to a Des McAnuff moment of humanity, suggesting he’s really of the people, and could be that’s where that common denominator that Mr. Green refers to can connect so richly when the material is right for what he brings. (I’m still sad he didn’t do the “Jersey Boys” film; Maybe a TV version someday?)
During intermission at “Dracula,” a surprising but orderly line had somehow formed of fans of the show’s composer Frank Wildhorn, who really wanted the chance to meet him. The back of the Belasco is not set up well for this type of meet and greet, and the worried usher came over to make sure there was a path so it wouldn’t become a hazard, that nobody would fall. She started being a little stern about it. Mr. McAnuff knew the usher was just doing her job, but also knew how special it was for a theatre composer to be met at his show by all these people telling him what his music meant to them.
The director walked over to the usher, and best I could hear, toucher her arm and charmingly said “Can we please let this happen? This is special.” The usher suddenly understood what Mr. McAnuff was saying, and together they helped the human traffic get around the line and into the aisle, so that Mr. Wildhorn could keep shaking hands and exchanging some words with every fan waiting to see him Sometimes the best work of theater artists isn’t always onstage.
10
Oh well. This is the show two sets of out of town guests wanted to see, so with guarded expectations, and the decent discount we got, maybe we'll have a good time?
And the line about the jukebox musical and the cockroach of Broadway, had me searching, since I knew I’d first read the classic Cher-cockroach line in the Times, and it was here:
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/11/arts/cher-resurrected-again-by-a-hit-...
“If there's a nuclear war, only two species will survive: the cockroaches and Cher.”
9
When I saw SUMMER at La Jolla in San Diego last December, I had the same feelings as the NY TIMES critic. Glad Mr. Green noted the betrayal many of us felt when we were castigated and dismissed by Donna Summer after being the ones who propelled her career to such heights. For the first thirty minutes of SUMMER, I couldn't let go of my hurt, even after all these years. The use of the female ensemble playing male roles baffled me, but what astounded me more were the people at the end of the performance, on their feet, screaming, cheering, maybe more for their memories of lost youth at the disco rather than what they'd just seen. The producers of this show certainly cannot hold Broadway audiences in such contempt? I knew immediately someone would have the audacity to take this lame show to Broadway to pull the wool over people's eyes. If you love Donna Summer, buy the CDs. Avoid this show.
26
Castigated and dismissed? I'm sure you played the game telephone and what was said was not what came out at the end. This is exactly what happened with Donna. The woman didn't have a hateful or discriminatory bone in her body. While the jukebox musical may not be everyone's taste for Broadway, the show, so far, is a hit and the audience loves it. I saw the show in La Jolla and did walk away wishing they could have told more of her story because there is much more to tell. I think her own play "Ordinary Girl" may have been more favorable to Broadway's elite group of critics.
3
As a critic-in-training, I agree a lot with what you just wrote. This is a big piece of forgettable fluff, right alongside "Escape to Margaritaville". Broadway producers need to realize more that it not just the music that matters most, it's the story.
10