‘On Your Feet’ celebrates immigrant Estefans’ triumph
Halfway through the first act of “On Your Feet,” Gloria Estefan’s husband, Emilio, butts heads with a record executive, who tells him he needs to change his sound and his name to succeed with Englishspeaking audiences. Emilio doesn’t buy it. Trying to explain what he’s already overcome, he explains how when he immigrated to Miami he saw apartment buildings with lawn signs spelling out in large letters: “No Pets, No Cubans.”
At the climax of their argument, Emilio shouts at him: “This is what an American looks like.”
The audience at Wednesday’s performance at the Opera House responded immediately, viscerally with hoots and wild applause. The crowd had cheered the earlier song and dance numbers with plenty of enthusiasm, but it didn’t match the gut reaction Emilio’s line elicited.
“On Your Feet” tours the country celebrating the immigrant experience at a time when some seek to vilify it. You can feel that theme over and over again in the show. But beyond its fortuitous political timing, it works on so many other levels.
Unlike many jukebox musicals, the career of Gloria Estefan and her family’s history fit the natural arc of a Broadway musical. Writer Alexander Dinelaris (who won an Academy Award for “Birdman”) included the right amount of cheeky humor and earnest tearjerking. For Spanish speakers, you’ll notice he gets a lot of laughs by sprinkling in Spanish slang and profanities.
The costumes and choreography echo classics like “West Side Story” and “Guys and Dolls” while still managing to be energetic and inventive. And the music — well, Gloria and the Miami Sound Machine have two dozen international hits, so music was never going to be a problem.
Casual pop fans may not understand the sonic revolution ushered in by the Miami Sound Machine. In an ’80s pop landscape dominated by white and black artists, record labels and radio programmers turned their noses up at anything with a hint of a Cuban rhythm. “On Your Feet” pulls back the curtain to reveal how the band’s talent, resolve and hustle changed that.
With a voice that nicely evokes Gloria’s, Christie Prades found the right blend of Top 40 smooth and Broadway power. But Mauricio Martinez as Emilio dominated every scene he set foot in. With telenovela looks and a voice ready to stand in for Placido Domingo, Martinez’s Emilio had style, charm and silliness. He somehow found a balance between Cary Grant cool and the blustering, lovable Jaime Camil on “Jane the Virgin.”
“Hamilton” and “Allegiance” have dominated conversations about political musicals, but “On Your Feet” proves to be one of most subversive (and joyful) musicals of the era. The political message, that immigrants make the entire American experiment worthwhile, is as inescapable as the brilliant choreography and blockbuster pop hits that anchor the show.