Walking into Smithfield Little Theatre on Sunday for the final performance of “Xanadu”, we were greeted by an adorable addition to the staff there – Pig-malion!  With an oink, this new member of Smithfield’s Porcine Parade invited us into the world of 1980s roller disco.  When the curtain opened, though, we were in… Greece? 

As it turns out, the story of “Xanadu” revolves around the Greek muse Clio, played by the always radiant Grace Fitzpatrick.  Clio and her eight sister muses come across the mortal Sonny Malone, a remarkably unsuccessful chalk artist in 1980s California played by Andrew Smith.  Clio decides to work her muse magic on Sonny, and surprisingly, he is inspired to create – wait for it – a roller disco!  Which seems to also include a movie screen and live theater!?!

Think this sounds like a hoot?  You would be right.  Director Jeff Johnson got his actors to really lean into the satirical tone and camp of the 1980s movie musical.  Fitzpatrick and Smith rekindle some of their chemistry they had in SLT’s “She Loves Me”, one of our favorite community theater productions of the past few years (although – spoiler alert – Smith doesn’t turn out to be a total tool in this one).  He leaves the evil this time to Christine LaSalle, playing fellow muse Melpomene who is jealous of Clio, and Kelly Flick as Calliope, who mostly just seems down to clown with her sister’s evil plotting.  Some of our favorite moments of the show were those driven by LaSalle and Flick, especially their performance of “Evil Woman”.  And when all the muses were on stage, we felt like we could look in any direction and find something funny going on with how they interacted with each other (which honestly, it seems right that in a family of nine kids there would be about a hundred subplots happening at any one time which the audience wouldn’t be privy to).

Eventually Sonny finds a location for his roller disco.  It is owned by Danny Maguire, a money-driven real estate mogul who initially tells Sonny to get out of his office as he has plenty of people to yell at on the phone and he doesn’t need any in person too (the gruffness is played perfectly by Brian Wrestler).  But, in a twist of fate, Clio happens to know Danny too – she used to inspire him 35 years ago (although, I guess not as effectively as cold hard cash).  Can Clio get Danny on board?  Is there an age inappropriate love triangle on the horizon?  Can love conquer Zeus’s book of rules?  All will be answered through a fun score of Olivia Newton-John jams. 

It is not often that a costuming group gets to tackle leg warmers, 80s men’s short shorts, and togas in the same production, but Meg Murray, Rachel Popp and Marilyn Abernathy (among others) were up to the challenge.  Putting the live band on stage made for some fun and challenging staging, and shout out to Val Johnson’s Pegasus, which absolutely stole one of the final scenes of the show, and had us laughing – no, cackling – all the way back to our car (don’t forget to wave to Pig-malion on the way out)!