Act 1 – The 1970 s – not the best time for nineteen year old Italian-American Tony Manero (Chris Cowley) to live up to the American Dream. Working in a paint store in Brooklyn, Tony spends his days wondering what to do with his life. He finds his very catholic family to be rather depressing which leads to a lot of fighting. The only way Tony sees to escape theses sorrows is by going out on Saturday nights with his friends, enjoying all the admiration and attention given to him based on his dancing skills.
One evening, when Tony is out once again with his friends, he is asked by Annette (Devon-Elise Johnson) to be her partner for an upcoming dance competition. Tony reluctantly accepts, making it very obvious to Annette that the only thing he’s interested in is dancing and that he doesn’t want anything to do with her apart from the competition. Right after having told Annette that he would be her partner for the contest, Tony sees Stephanie Mangano (Naomi Slights). Stephanie is a very talented dancer, and Tony instantly regrets having told Annette he would dance with her.
When Tony is training with Annette, he meets Stephanie, who just recently moved to Manhattan and now has a well paid job. In Tonys point of few, Stephanie is everything he fails to be, successful on the one hand, but still, on the other hand, a very talented dancer that didn’t give up on her hobby. He tells Annette that he found a new partner and starts training with Stephanie. Just like Tony did before with Annette, at the beginning Stephanie doesn’t want any personal relationship with Tony.
But Tony isn’t the only one in his group of friends that has problems, one of his friends, Bobby (Paul Syrstad), got his girlfriend pregnant and is now totally overwhelmed because he can’t handle the situation. But whenever he tries to talk about it with his friends, they don’t really seem to care or don’t understand how serious his problem his, which leads to Bobby feeling left alone and misunderstood.
Act 2 – Tony wants to help Stephanie make her final move to Manhattan. When his boss at the paint store refuses to give him the day of, Tony quits his job just to help Stephanie. On the night of the dance competition, Tony is scared that he might not be able to dance well, because he and his friends got in a fight the other night and Tony injured his knee quite bad. When Stephanie and Tony win the competition anyway, he believes the competition to be rigged and hands over the price, including the price money, to another pair of Puerto-Rican Dancers whom he believed to have danced better. This decision leads to an argument with Stephanie, who thinks they earned the price.
Later the same night, Tony goes looking for his friends and finds one of them in the act of raping Annette, who is clearly drunk and can’t defend herself. He then stops his friend, and tries to convince Bobby, who was climbing a bridge in a very unsecure way, to descend. Bobby wants to prove himself in front of his friends, because he thinks they believe everything he does just turns out all wrong. In the act of climbing, Bobby looses his grip and dies falling off the bridge.
The morning after Bobbys‘ horrible death, Tony goes to see Stephanie because he is very sad. He tells her that he, too, wants to move to Manhattan and change his life fort he better. They then promise each other to stay very good friends.
The English Theaters production of the classic „Saturday Night Fever“, directed by Ryan McBryde, choreographed by Darragh O’Leary, and with new musical arrangements by Paul Herbert, is a first class recreation of the original show and movie. In a combination of dialogue and songs from the movie, the small cast offered a very entertaining evening for their audience. In a very minimalistic set, the talented actors, singers and dancers manage to create a journey back to the 70 s with songs from the Bee Gees such as Stayin‘ Alive, Jive Talkin‘, How Deep Is Your Love and of course Saturday Night. For their convincing and fascinating show, the cast was rewarded by standing ovations by the audience.