Exulting in His Fabulous Moment, a Spangled Disco Diva at Fever Pitch 'Mighty Real,' a Musical About the Pop Star Sylvester
Charles IsherwoodSeptember 21, 2014: A disco ball the size of a small house twirls over the stage at the Theater at St. Clement’s, where Mighty Real, a slender but musically vibrant show about the androgynous pop star Sylvester, has audience members shaking their booties in their seats. There are two more disco balls, of slightly more modest size, shaking their own booties above the audience, speckling the auditorium with dizzying dots. Can a show about a pop-funk star in his prime whose songs “Do Ya Wanna Funk” and “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” remain standards of any disco-themed party night really have too many mirror balls? I think not. An assertion of Sylvester’s glamorous divadom, fated to fade too soon when he died of AIDS in 1988, drives this flimsy but glitter-drenched bio musical. The subtitle announces “Mighty Real” as “A Fabulous Sylvester Musical.” But fabulousness, like much else, is a subjective matter. And I can only second this subtitular self-endorsement when it comes to the musical portions of the show, which fortunately make up most of it.
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