Barry Manilow's Copacabana is based on Manilow's song "Copacabana" from his early album, Even Now. He expanded the 3 1/2-minute song into a TV musical, then an Atlantic City staging. Early in 2000 this full-length musical comedy premiered in Pittsburgh. It has been revised extensively since then. Surely you remember the story as told in the song lyric: "Her name was Lola, she was a show girl...."
With the help of a pianist-composer (originally Manilow himself) she becomes a star at the Copa, then is abducted and taken to Havana by Rico, who own a night club there. The denouement has been changed to provide a happy ending, in an effort to please audiences. A virtual homage to technicolor movies of the 1940s and 50s is what we now have, with brightly-colored costumes, neon and twinkling stars. Even the orchestrations are modeled on movie music, including the underscoring behind some of the dialogue. The action is framed by a prologue and epilogue showing a present-day Brooklyn songwriter struggling to create the song. A cute touch: after the happy ending, the songwriter considers changing the ending that he just used, and having Lola die as she does in the original version of Manilow's song. "No," he decides. "That could never be a hit."
There are scenery changes accomplished with dissolves and lavish production numbers that mimic the old movies. The excellent choreography is by Wayne Cilento.
Frank D'Ambrosio takes the songwriter/leading role. He's a tough, aggressive Brooklyn boy, a little reminiscent of Gene Kelly, a good dancer with a fine Broadway voice. (Note to the revivers of Pal Joey: Consider this guy .) Darcie Roberts dances extremely well as Lola, but her voice is too brassy. The suave, elegant Philip Hernandez is Rico, the villain. And Gavin McCloud is fine as the hard-boiled owner of the Copa. He doesn't do Love Boat shtick but really plays his part and sings a good comic song. The script contains humor and reverence for the earlier era.
The direction by David Warren is polished and effective. Manilow's score has lots of variety and several show-stopping numbers, especially "Sweet Heaven" and the title song, which is, smartly, reprised after the curtain calls.
