Theater review by Adam Feldman
As December pokes its frigid fingers into New York City, Buena Vista Social Club offers an irresistible tropical vacation. A celebration of Cuban musical history, it’s a getaway and a gateway: To attend this show—situated, fittingly, at the Atlantic Theatre—is to enter a world thick with history that you’ll want to learn more about afterward, if you don’t know it already. While you’re there, though, you don’t need to think too hard. Just give yourself over to the sounds that pour out from the stage.
The 1997 album Buena Vista Social Club gathered an extraordinary group of elderly musicians to recreate the atmosphere and the traditional musical styles—son, boleros, guajiras—of a racially inclusive Havana nightspot before the Cuban Revolution. It became a worldwide sensation upon its release, and was the subject of a 1999 documentary film by Wim Wenders. Marco Ramirez’s stage version has a less strictly factual bent. “Some of what follows is true,” says bandleader Juan de Marcos (Luis Vega), who was instrumental in assembling the album’s participants. “Some of it only feels true.”
Perhaps for dramatic economy, this account—on which the real-life de Marcos is credited as a consultant—writes out the contributions of the project’s British initiator, Nick Gold, and American producer, Ry Cooder. It focuses instead on stories about four of the album’s principal performers: vocalists Omara Portuondo (a regal Natalie Venetia Belcon) and Ibrahim Ferrer (Mel Semé), guitarist-singer Compay Segundo (Julio Monge) and pianist Rubén González (Jainardo Batista Sterling). Scenes from the album’s 1996 recording process alternate with flashbacks to younger versions of the same characters some 40 years earlier, when they are played, respectively, by Kenya Brown, Olly Sholotan, Jared Machado and Leonardo Reyna. (The 1950s scenes also feature Danaya Esperanza as Omara’s sister, Haydee, with whom she performed at the whiter and more upscale El Tropicana.)
Buena Vista Social Club | Photograph: Courtesy Ahron R. Foster
The script hits its marks effectively, if not surprisingly, and director Saheem Ali keeps the toggling structure evocative and clear, with valuable help from Arnulfo Maldonado’s set, Dede Ayite’s costumes. But the plot is just a hanger for the musical numbers, which is where Buena Vista Social Club comes to thrilling life. The show makes no attempt to force its score into doing character work; all 15 songs, of which nine were part of the original 1996 recording sessions, are presented as performances in nightclubs or recording studios, sometimes heightened by the six excellent dancers who execute Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck’s gorgeously fluid and individuated choreography. The lyrics are untranslated, but that hardly matters. The music itself is the story.
Credit, then, to the music team for this production: creative consultant David Yazbek, music supervisor Dean Sharenow and musical director, arranger and orchestrator Marco Paguia. And credit, too, to the terrific ten-piece band that reproduces the original ensemble’s artistry so excitingly. Resenito Avich, playing tresero Eliades Ochoa, has a virtuosic solo in the second act, but each of the instrumentalists gets a chance to shine, and they deservedly take the final bow as a group at the end of the show. Together, they summon the spirit of their subjects. The son remains the same. It’s true to the feeling.
Buena Vista Social Club. Atlantic Theater Company (Off Broadway). Book by Marco Ramirez. Music and lyrics by various writers. Directed by Saheem Ali. With Natalie Venetia Belcon, Julio Monge, Mel Semé, Resenito Avich, Jainardo Batista Sterling, Kenya Brown, Olly Sholotan, Danaya Esperanza, Jared Machado, Leonardo Reyna, Luis Vega. Running time: 2hrs 15mins. One intermission.
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Buena Vista Social Club | Photograph: Courtesy Ahron R. Foster
