Chart Condition

So it’s perfect timing that Cortland Repertory Theatre is kicking off its 37th summer season with 8-Track: The Sounds of the ’70s,
a musical cavalcade constructed by Rick Seeber. Getting into the spirit
was CRT producing artistic director Kerby Thompson, last seen amassing
numerous bruises during a comedy routine orchestrated by Art Zimmer for
the April 27 Syracuse New Times Syracuse Area Live Theater
(SALT) awards held at Syracuse Stage. Thompson introduced the show
while wearing gleaming white disco togs a la Saturday Night Fever’s John Travolta (“It still fits,” he chirped), then reminded audiences that a soundtrack recording of 8-Track
was on sale in the lobby (actually the second-floor perimeter of the
Edward Jones Playhouse) for the price of (nudge-nudge) $19.75.

Roller boogie fever: Cast members perform “Car Wash” for 8-Track: The Sounds of the ’70s

Then the show’s Polyester-clad quartet
of singers-dancers (Gabriel Mudd and Leigh Wakeford as the guys,
Crystal Rona Peterson and Katherine Proctor representing the ladies)
took the stage to offer their own replication of an old K-Tel Records
TV commercial, likewise informing theatergoers that they’d better act
fast because the 8-Track CD “was not available in stores.” The
hard sell was amusing, although it seems doubtful that Seeber was
inspired by director Robert Altman’s usage of the same gimmick in Nashville. And while 8-Track
may sometimes feel like a 90-minute infomercial for the CD (perhaps
this is the show’s canniest bit of marketing; many of those
TV-advertised collections of yesteryear were not performed by the
original artists, either), at least it’s considerably more fun than the
current 30-minute spot for a best-of collection that features members
of Air Supply reciting (quite badly) their teleprompter lines.

With close to four dozen songs—some are
just snippets while the rest are complete versions—getting covered,
Seeber occasionally attempts to recreate the breadth of the decade’s
Top 40 AM radio charts. More often, alas, he settles in for a
middle-of-the-road tapestry, not an all-encompassing funk-to-punk
salute. For instance, instead of co-opting Ray Stevens’ goopy
sing-along “Everything is Beautiful,” there would have been more laughs
if Seeber reprised Stevens’ novelty number “The Streak,” a fad that
gained notoriety when a streaker crashed the 1974 Academy Awards.

Seeber likes to lump songs into thematic
batches: The “War and Peace” segment features, naturally, “War”
(lighting designer Todd Proffitt proffers a scarlet hue as it washes
over the company) as well as Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train” (or Islam
Yusef, if you prefer) and Tony Orlando and Dawn’s “Tie a Yellow Ribbon
(Round the Old Oak Tree).” And Seeber has a knack for segues.
Immediately following the quartet’s rendition of Starland Vocal Band’s
“Afternoon Delight,” transformed here into a horny country-western
hoedown, three singers depart the stage as Gabriel Mudd laments, “You
left me on the way to paradise,” which cleverly turns out to be the
opening lyric for “Smoke from a Distant Fire,” the Sanford-Townsend
single. 

The performers don’t seem to be
necessarily bound by demands for note-perfect renditions of these
oldies. In one example, Leigh Wakeford’s rendition of Rare Earth’s
heavy rocker “Get Ready” turns out to be the white-bread equivalent of
Pat Boone’s 1950s-vintage rhythm’n’blues covers. Yet Wakeford captures
James Taylor’s dulcet tones for “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight,” and
he handles an exacting Leo Sayer tribute, too. In the show’s sharpest
skewering, a bare-chested Wakeford imitates Barry Manilow for “I Write
the Songs,” replete with self-aggrandizing ego-stroking.

Not available in stores: Gabriel Mudd, Crystal Rona Peterson, Leigh Wakeford, and

Katherine Proctor in Cortland Repertory’s 8-Track: The Sounds of the ’70s.

 

Gabriel Mudd, who sports an Afro wig during the first act that makes him resemble Michael Jackson around the time of The Wiz,
offers a welcome twist for Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Only Again,
Naturally,” as he warbles the saccharine suicide note to his only
friend: a pet rock. Katherine Proctor, at times a dead ringer for Jane
Curtin, neatly acts out the lyrics of Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman,” first
showcasing apprehension followed by gradual self-empowerment as the
hit-and-Ms. song achieves its feminist goal. And Crystal Rona Peterson
accomplishes the near-impossible: adding soulful snap to the sappy
sentiment of Debby Boone’s “You Light Up My Life.” 

Director-choreographer Daniel B. Hess does what he can to get around 8-Track’s
biggest handicap: the use of canned music from arranger Michael
Gribbin. There’s no sense imagining what a revved-up band could have
done to punch up these tunes, as the show often feels, to coin the old
Carnac the Magnificent intro, hermetically sealed in a mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnall’s porch since noon today. 

So Hess apparently has instructed his
foursome to have plenty of on-stage fun and let the audience’s musical
memories fill in the gaps. Hess’ best dance moves include a strobe-lit
salute to Meco’s disco-flavored Star Wars theme, putting his
players into funny getups for C.W. McCall’s trucker anthem “Convoy” and
later atop roller skates for “Car Wash.” And his quartet, all blessed
with sweet voices, enunciate the lyrics so clearly that even “Lady
Marmalade” begins to make sense; too bad the time-based parameters of
this show prevent them from translating “Louie, Louie.”

As plotless musical cabarets go, Cortland Repertory’s whirlwind compendium of 8-Track: The Sounds of the ’70s offers a good beat that you can dance to.

 

This production runs through Saturday, June 14. See Times Table for information.