Saturday Night Fever a Smash at Westchester Broadway Theatre

BY GEORGE J. DACRE

In the late 1970s in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn disco and it’s dance craze was a savior for young men and women is the midst of a depression, defeat in Vietnam, the Watergate scandal, the Iran hostage crisis and the gas crisis. A local disco sets the scene for young men in white suits and platform shoes dancing their hearts away with beautiful young ladies and competition among them to be the best couple on the floor.

John Travolta’s role as Tony Manero is brought to life on the Westchester Broadway Theatre stage with a great performance by Jacob Tischler and a young and vibrant cast puts on a show of the dance fever that swept the nation and the world. The scenes mainly are at the Manero home where Tony gets a rough time from his parents for his big interest in dancing when they think he should be working and earning a living; and at the 2001 Odyssey disco where Tony and Stephanie (Alexandra Matteo) and Annette (Gianna Yanelli) strut their stuff with the sad story of Annette losing out and becoming the object of sexual exploitation by other young men in the disco crowd.

The vibrancy of the BeeGees music and the disco dancing of Manero and the very good young cast fills WBT with a constant beat and is well received by the audience. The orchestration and choreography is spot on and there is great movement, exhilaration, and sound through the entire two acts.

Well-staged and directed and choreographed by Richard Stafford with

musical direction by Ryan Edward Wise, “Fever” is a great performance. It has it’s sad and poignantscenes with the death of one of the young men who shows off by hanging off the side of the Verrazanno bridge. But

the music goes on and Saturday Night Fever which will play many months to thousands of theatregoers at WBT in Elmsford is a hit.

I rate it Four Stars Out Of Four. See it now through November 27 or December 19 through January 29, 2017. Information and tickets at 914-592-2222 or broadwaytheatre.com.