Rhythm rules in Estefan musical ‘On Your Feet!’
Dance numbers make up for uneven storyline
Jukebox musicals are so common that there’s nothing particularly surprising about the fact that there’s a Broadway musical about Gloria Estefan. Now playing at San Francisco’s SHN Golden Gate Theatre, “On Your Feet!” is a 2015 biographical musical about the multiple Grammy-winning Cuban-American pop star and her producer husband Emilio Estefan, who first became famous through their band Miami Sound Machine.
The show also serves as the grand reopening of the newly remodeled SHN Golden Gate Theatre, which opened as a vaudeville house in 1922 and was a movie palace for about 20 years before SHN took it over in 1979 (which was the last time the building was refurbished till now). Immediately after its San Francisco run, Broadway San Jose brings the musical to San Jose’s Center for the Performing Arts.
As one might expect, the show features many of the Estefans’ catchy dance hits, such as “Conga” and “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You,” deftly played by an onstage orchestra headed by music director Clay Ostwald, the keyboard player for Miami Sound Machine. (The band’s longtime bass player and music director Jorge Casas is also in the orchestra.) There are also a whole lot of Estefan’s
schmaltzy romantic ballads for the show’s sentimental moments. There’s even one original number, a touching Broadway-style duet for Emilio and Gloria’s mother, also named Gloria, with lyrics by Gloria Estefan and music by daughter Emily Estefan.
Christie Prades commands the stage as Gloria, nicely growing from tentative neophyte to assured superstar, and Mauricio Martinez is a charming and funny Emilio, with a cute running gag about his thick accent and penchant for malapropisms. Carmen Sanchez has some powerhouse vocals as little Gloria (alternating with Ana-Sofia Rodriguez).
Nancy Ticotin is sternly resentful as Gloria Sr., but becomes radiant in her few musical numbers. Alma Cuervo is amusingly enthusiastic as Gloria’s grandmother, and Jason Martinez has some touching moments as Gloria’s seldom seen father, suffering from multiple sclerosis.
Other characters such as Gloria’s sister Rebecca (Claudia Yanez) are always present but kept firmly in the background.
The book by Alexander Dinelaris, an Oscar-winning screenwriter for “Birdman,” is a bumpy ride with a lot of strange omissions. It seems to be a big deal for Gloria to be invited to work with the Miami Latin Boys (later Miami Sound Machine), but there isn’t even the tiniest taste of what their music sounded like before she joined. We don’t even really get a sense of what Emilio does in the band exactly, besides producing. The show also skips over a couple of significant deaths that are only mentioned in passing much later.
Despite some awkward pacing during family arguments, director Jerry Mitchell (the Tony Awardwinning choreographer and Tony-nominated director of “Kinky Boots”) keeps things lively for the most part. David Rockwell’s puzzling
set consists of shifting panels made up of window shutters, with scenic backgrounds filled in by Darrel Maloney’s projections. Emilio Sosa provides some suitably flashy costumes for the performance scenes, with colorful rock concert lighting by Kenneth Posner.
The real treat is Sergio Trujillo’s festive and dynamic choreography, which earned the show its sole Tony nomination. Jordan Vergara really tears up the floor as a kid at whose bar mitzvah the band is playing. (Alternating with Carlos Carreras, he also portrays the couple’s son and young Emilio.) Perhaps one reason that the slow, sentimental love songs feel so overrepresented in the mix is because the show’s so much more engaging when everybody’s on their feet.