The cabaret show ‘8-Track’ revels in the decade’s best songs.

By Guy D’Astolfo

The cabaret show ‘8-Track’ revels in the decade’s best songs.

PITTSBURGH — It wasn’t the music that made the ’70s the strange netherworld of decades. It was everything else: the garish clothes, the disco dance moves, the politically charged atmosphere.

But it is the music that brings it all back, and it’s what makes “8-Track: The Sound of the ’70s” such a smile.

The Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera production opened Thursday at the Cabaret Theater in the cultural district, and will run all summer. (In case you don’t know, the 8-track tape was a short-lived portable music unit that was all the rage for a couple of years — basically the audio equivalent of the VHS tape).

You don’t have to be old enough to remember the 40-plus songs to enjoy “8-Track” — believe me, everyone has heard these songs countless times.

A four-person cast sings and dances its way through the show, sometimes adding so much background information that songs turn into skits.

Like when Bradley Beahen dons trucker gear and bounces his way through “Convoy.” He takes on a hippie hitchhiker in Jon-Michael Reese, who was filling in for Teddey Brown in Thursday’s opening-night show.

And the group’s take on Maureen McGovern’s 1973 hit “The Morning After.” It gave that song (from disaster flick “The Poseidon Adventure”) a whole new meaning that had more to do with last night’s shenanigans than looking toward the future.

Reese, who donned an afro wig (a fateful slip revealed it as faux hair), lent comic charm to the proceedings, getting out-of-control at times, or playing the broken-hearted sob with a mere facial expression. His well-trained voice wasn’t so well-suited for the freewheeling early-decade songs, but came in handy for the more serious fare of later years.

That was also the case for Tess Soltau, one of the two women in the cast. Her soprano range, strong voice and flashy, long blonde hair made her perfect for the late-decade disco songs, but not so much for the earlier tunes.

Tess Primack, the fourth member and a baritone like Beahen, had the best all-purpose voice. She also had an earth-mother bearing that fit the bill for the hippie-era, anti-war songs.

In fact, it seemed that each member fit best into a phase, with Beahen playing the salacious free-love type, and Reese looking like Hendrix in the first half and an activist in the second.

The 250-capacity cabaret theater is ideal for this stage show. Most patrons relax around small tables with a drink (fixed seats are in the terraced room’s rear). A nice touch is a back-lit proscenium on the tiered stage, which bathes the room in unnatural neon colors.

Rick Seeber conceived and directed the 1-hour, 45-minute show, which has had extensive runs in at least a dozen major cities. Tonya Phillips Staples handled choreography, bringing all those “Saturday Night Fever” dance moves out of cold storage.

Costume designer Barbara Wolfe deserves special credit for her attention to detail in the clothes and accessories of the day. It’s all there: platform shoes, bell-bottom pants (and bell-bottom sleeves on the women), big loopy earrings, vests and, of course, the white disco suits and V-cut hemlines on the girls’ party dresses.

The absurdly flamboyant accoutrements alone garnered laughs, like the fake-diamond bedecked belt buckle that Beahen wore.

Hey, wait: Some of those items are back in style, such as the Bohemian shirts, wedge heels and chunky bead jewelry. What’s old is new.

“8-Track,” of course, would be nothing without the songs, and that ultimately is what makes it so much fun. The soundtrack of the ’70s starts with war, turns into a party, mellows into some rock and then gets out of control with disco.

Some highlights include “I Am Woman” (sung solo by Primack), “Alone Again Naturally” (Reese), “War” (Beahen leading the ensemble), “Lady Marmalade” (the girls strutting center stage), the not-so-subtle but fun “Afternoon Delight,” “Smoke from a Distant Fire” (horns blaring out of the speakers) and the hopeful “Oooh Child.”

Some Eagles (“Desperado”) and Elton (“Your Song”) brought things back to earth before the show-closing disco set brought it home with songs like “The Hustle,” “Get Down Tonight,” “YMCA” and, of course, “Stayin’ Alive.”