Cher wants musical to be ‘more truthful’
Cher’s early review of “The Cher Show” is in: It needs work.
Over the weekend the actress and singer sneaked into a Chicago theater where the Broadway-bound play is set to debut.
After catching preview performances, she declared that the musical about her life could use a little more life. “Sometimes, I was having a blast. Sometimes, my mind was wandering. I think those are the parts that are going to get better,” she said in a Q&A with the Chicago Tribune.
Never one to hold back, Cher said the production is a work in progress. “Some parts of it are really fabulous. We’re going to work on the other parts,” the 72-year-old pop icon said. “In many parts, it was much, much better than I thought it would be. And there were no parts where I wanted to gouge my eyes out.”
Cher, seeing the show for the first time, said the show focuses on the key men in her life (ex-husbands Sonny Bono and Gregg Allman, plus Robert Altman), her movies and her relationship with her mother. Three actresses portray her at different stages of her life, but at times all three share the stage, singing and interacting with each other.
Cher said she pushed for the show to be as honest as possible. “My life is 72 years. My career is 53 years,” she said. “So the show has to skip all over the place. I am actually pushing them to be more truthful about me. I’ve already said so much about my life. It would be silly for them to come up with a Mother Teresa.”
As for the changes she’d like to see, Cher says she’s been in the ear of director Jason Moore. “There are lines in the show that sound like quotes but aren’t quite right. I’ve been telling him the real quotes,” she said.
“I have a lot to say. And I am pushing them to do three dance songs in a concert-style way at the end, a bit like they do in ‘Mamma Mia.’ I think the audience would like that.”