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RIVER DEEP, A TRIBUTE TO TINA TURNER Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 416 W. 42nd St.; (212) 279-4200. Through July 29.
THAT "River Deep, A Tribute to Tina Turner" offers not a note of its subject's music is both its biggest weakness and its biggest strength.
The music/theater homage that opened this weekend, directed and choreographed by Gabrielle Lansner, at times manages to convey the pop diva's forceful personality and musical impact while avoiding clichéd jukebox-musical renditions of the songs that made her famous.
Still, there's something disconcerting about a production celebrating one of pop's most influential figures that ignores her music. Instead of such classics as "What's Love Got to Do With It" and the song that gives this show its title, the choreography is performed to an original score by Philip Hamilton that's clearly been influenced by Turner's blending of pop, soul and rock.
Seven women, including Pat Hall as Turner, perform a series of energetic dance routines and songs frequently interrupted by monologues taken from "I, Tina," the singer's autobiography. All of them wear the kind of short, spangled dresses that have made Tina's legs famous.
Hamilton's score has its strong points, including peppy numbers like "Treat You Like a Lady" that wouldn't be out of place in a compilation of girl groups of the '60s. But much of it also has a generic quality, as does the choreography, which in its repetitive series of bumps, grinds and shimmying seems more suited for a concert background than a dance piece. The more thematically ambitious segments, such as "See No Evil, Say No Evil," have the performers alternating between agonized poses and self-flagellation.
Visually, the piece is monotonous as well, with the sole diversion being backdrop projections of still pictures of the dancers.
It isn't until the end that we see a photo of the subject herself, and by then it's possible that we may have forgotten who the show is supposed to be about.
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