Calling all disco queens. Get out your best polyester frock and fluff up your fro — it’s party time on the Barracuda, the casino riverboat bound for destruction in “Disaster!,” a ridiculously if unevenly funny Broadway musical (by Seth Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick) sending up the 1970s cultural zeitgeist. Corralling a catalog of pop and disco hits to tell their spoofy story, the creatives find much to laugh at in the garish fashions, cheesy movies, weepy pop songs and disco-druggy dance tunes of that beloved era.
The opening number, scored to a spirited version of “Hot Stuff,” efficiently introduces the principals and guests boarding this ship of fools. Roger Bart (“The Producers”) is all greasy charm as Tony, the sleazy entrepreneur in the shiny blue tuxedo (designed with a sneer by William Ivey Long) who has evaded all security regulations to launch this doomed enterprise. He’ll pay for that in Act Two, when earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tidal waves tip the Barracuda upside-down, a la “The Poseidon Adventure,” with referential nods to other 1970s disaster movies like “The Towering Inferno,” “Earthquake,” and “Airport.”
The other principals are all stock characters, familiar if not always beloved: Rachel York is Jackie, the beautiful lounge singer who entertains in the cabaret while waiting for Tony to marry her. Her twin sons, both played with wit by Baylee Littrell, are along for the ride. Another singer (Lacretta Nicole) is in big voice, but has little to do.
The male romantic interest is played by swoony Adam Pascal, who here returns (in gorgeous voice) to the same theater where he did serious time as the original lead of “Rent.” Although his comic sidekick and fellow waiter (Max Crumm) is devoid of charm, Pascal is nicely partnered by the soprano Kerry Butler (of fond “Xanadu” memory).
To Pascal and Butler fall the emotionally overwrought pop love songs like “Feelings.” Pascal gets a great laugh by falling to his knees and letting it rip in “Without You,” and “I’d Really Like to See You Tonight” seems like the appropriate duet for two lovers going down with the ship.
The opening number, scored to a spirited version of “Hot Stuff,” efficiently introduces the principals and guests boarding this ship of fools. Roger Bart (“The Producers”) is all greasy charm as Tony, the sleazy entrepreneur in the shiny blue tuxedo (designed with a sneer by William Ivey Long) who has evaded all security regulations to launch this doomed enterprise. He’ll pay for that in Act Two, when earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tidal waves tip the Barracuda upside-down, a la “The Poseidon Adventure,” with referential nods to other 1970s disaster movies like “The Towering Inferno,” “Earthquake,” and “Airport.”
The other principals are all stock characters, familiar if not always beloved: Rachel York is Jackie, the beautiful lounge singer who entertains in the cabaret while waiting for Tony to marry her. Her twin sons, both played with wit by Baylee Littrell, are along for the ride. Another singer (Lacretta Nicole) is in big voice, but has little to do.
The male romantic interest is played by swoony Adam Pascal, who here returns (in gorgeous voice) to the same theater where he did serious time as the original lead of “Rent.” Although his comic sidekick and fellow waiter (Max Crumm) is devoid of charm, Pascal is nicely partnered by the soprano Kerry Butler (of fond “Xanadu” memory).
To Pascal and Butler fall the emotionally overwrought pop love songs like “Feelings.” Pascal gets a great laugh by falling to his knees and letting it rip in “Without You,” and “I’d Really Like to See You Tonight” seems like the appropriate duet for two lovers going down with the ship.
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