Donna Summer’s music certainly spent plenty of time coming out of jukeboxes — as well as radios — around the world, especially during the mid- and late-70s when she was the acknowledged Queen of Disco. So it’s appropriate that a jukebox musical would be the vehicle to tell her story on stage.
“Summer: The Donna Summer Musical,” at Detroit’s Fisher Theatre through March 20, is just that — a parade of Summer’s hits and other appropriate songs to tell a story that’s more poignant and nuanced that those who only heard her, well, “On the Radio” might know. And if it’s the music you’re there for, “Summer” will have you feeling the love.
But like many shows of this ilk, “Summer” has a hard time figuring out when, as another song says, enough is enough. Or not enough.
There’s no shortage of drama in Summer’s story for “Summer” to dig into, including abuse as both a child (in church) and adult, self-image issues, intense battles with a sexist music industry, substance abuse, allegations of homophobia and a return to faith before her death in 2012 from lung cancer at the age of 62. The production — which debuted in La Jolla, Calif. in 2017 and spent nine months on Broadway the following year — skips through it all in brisk, Cliffs Notes fashion, glossing over a great deal and not always with chronological accuracy. As a result, we sometimes lose sight of the fact Summer was a genuinely iconic star, with 14 Top 10 singles, worldwide sales of more than 140 records and a 2103 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
“Summer’s” greatest flaw is that it powers through its hour and 45 minutes without an intermission. Though Brittny Smith as Diva Donna — one of three actresses portraying different eras of Summer — introduces the show as “the concert of a lifetime,” “Summer” is still a theatrical piece with a book and a story arc that require a moment for audiences to take a breath and take stock. We don’t get that opportunity with “Summer,” and by the time the show gets to the darker days of despair and disease, it feels like a slog.
And that makes the closing couplet of “Hot Stuff” and “Last Dance” simply jarring, as if its writers realized they’d need to shake the audience out of its torpor at that point.
“Summer” is, then, episodically successful, and especially when all three Summers — Smith, Charis Gullage (Disco Donna) and Ahmahri Edwards-Jones (young Duckling Donna) — are singing together on favorites such as “MacArthur Park,” “No More Tears (Enough is Enough),” “I Believe in Jesus” and “Last Dance.” Smith is the show’s narrator or but it’s Gullage who does the heavy dramatic and vocal lifting, and she proves a potent force throughout the show as she handles the likes of “Love to Love You Baby,” “Heaven Knows,” “Bad Girls” and a moving “Dim All the Lights” — dueting effectively on the latter with Aubrey Young as Joyce Bogart, wife and partner of Casablanca Records chief Neil Bogart.
Some of the staging is memorable, too, including Disco Donna learning to drive during “On the Radio” and the full-company “She Works Hard for the Money,” which depicts in fluid fashion Summer’s legal and label machinations during the late 70s. The music performances, meanwhile, get their edge from the singers rather than the keyboard-dominated arrangements, which are neutered by a cushy kind of Broadway gloss.
Towards the end of the show, Smith’s Diva Donna declares that, “It was a great party. I wasn’t at the party — I WAS the party!” And the upshot is if you want nothing more profound than a party, it’s easy to have a good time with “Summer.”
“Summer: The Donna Summer Musical” runs through March 20 at the Fisher Theatre, 3011 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit. $39 and up. 313-872-1000 or broadwayindetroit.com.
