Mayhem! Gambling! Disco! In ‘Disaster!’ It’s All There for the Spoofing
Charles IsherwoodMarch 8, 2016: Alert the authorities! There’s a wayward nun on the loose in New York City, committing grand larceny eight times a week. I joke, of course — though that story would be a fun diversion from the onslaught of election coverage, no? The crimes are fictional, and are taking place at the Nederlander Theater on Broadway, where Jennifer Simard, playing a singing sister with an unquenchable yen for slot machines, is pilfering every scene she adorns in the delirious goof of a musical, “Disaster!” Perhaps petty larceny is a more appropriate charge, since this self-consciously silly spoof of the cheesy 1970s films that subjected assorted B-list stars to assorted calamities will never rank among the great musicals of our era — or even the great jukebox musicals of our era, a rather small demographic. But for anyone with a moist, albeit mortifying, affection for the oeuvre of that great auteur Irwin Allen (guilty), and the K-Tel era of pop music (guilty), “Disaster!” will provide a rush of giddy nostalgia that’s just as pleasurable, at times, as the more substantial rewards of the musical theater’s higher-reaching shows.
READ THE REVIEW