Barry Manilow's Copacabana is light-hearted summer fun. Yes, you can sing along.

Her name was Lola.
She was a showgirl.

His name was Rico.

He wore a diamond

You know the rest.
I don’t remember much about the first production I saw of Barry Manilow’s Copacabana. I remember my friend Gavin MacLeod starred in the thankless role of Sam; I remember so many yellow feathers that I thought I might have mistakenly walked into a canary carnage.

I remember thinking that a hit single---even an infectious one, even one that was so popular Dame Shirley turned it into a disco favorite---couldn’t be drawn out into a splashy musical. Manilow wrote the song’s lyrics; the tune earned him his first and only Grammy. An innocuous 90-minute 1985 TV special (with Manilow in the show; producers often have to remind theater goers buying tickets for the stage show that Mr. B is not in the show, his name is simply on the marquee), yes. A solid Broadway smash? No.

And I was right . . . Copacabana has played here and there, a 75-minute version played Vegas for years, the show also had a run in selected US cities, played in various countries, even was performed in Japan by the all-female Takarazuka troupe.

But a run on Broadway? A sold-out bona-fide hit? A show to knock some masked phantom out of his opera box and into, say, Chicago?
No.

Perhaps Lola was too busy trying to be a star while Tony always tended bar and Mr. Manilow was writing and signing the songs that made the young boys and girls cry.

And so I was so pleasantly surprised by the Pittsburgh CLO production now at home at the Benedum Center.

Somewhere along the line, BMC has been revised and revamped. It no longer strives

to be a Great Musical but fun, frothy light-hearted fare. And it works. This is simple summer fun; a nice way to get out of the heat (and/or rain) and watch a benign show that will leave you smiling. And singing along.
     The show takes place in the mind of a struggling songwriter named Stephen . . . his dreams take us back to the era when music and passion were always the fashion. But though Pittsburgh CLO Executive Producer Van Kaplan describes the show as “a love letter to the Technicolor musicals of the 1940s,” don’t look too closely. Charles Repole has directed the show with such a sly, speedy hand that it’s over before you realize that what just unfolded defines “skimpy.”
     The Copa was a world-famous showplace (Sinatra’s on the line! So is Veronica Lake!), but from the look of the well-worn set, this Cope is as flat as the bubbles festooning the scrim that welcomes guests. The cast seems large, but this is as much an illusion as the steps leading to nowhere and the cut-out jetliner flying a kidnapped Lola off to Havana. Many people simply take on many roles. And when Stephen dreams the “Sweet Heaven” production number, the girls are supposed to represent the astrological signs of the zodiac . . . all eight of them?
     OK, so the Libra scales are a bit off balance.

     But I liked it. I really liked it.
     There is great chemistry between Tony Yazbeck and Chandra Schwartz as star-crossed lovers Lola and Tony, and there is an occasional snappy line (“I knew Rodgers and Hammerstein before they were married”).
     There are also tender touches moments, and all of them all into the hands of Elise Santora, whose take on the role of famed Cuban singer Conchita Alvarez is part Miranda, part Moreno. Santora is funny and madly talented, and she will break your heart.
     At one point, she’s told that she is “loved by millions;” but her heart has been shattered by her no-good lover and she simply asks: “Maybe being loved by one would be better.”

Barry Manilow's Copacabana runs through Sunday, August 2. For tickets, call (412) 456-6666 or visit www.pgharts.com

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