What a joyful thing is Buena Vista Social Club, and I refer to both the new musical at the Gerald Schoenfeld and the film that inspired it. Wim Wenders’s 1999 Oscar-nominated collage introduced us to an array of Afro-Cuban talents, all of a certain age, brought together long after their heyday for a compendium album and a world tour that triumphantly ended at Carnegie Hall. Having marshalled a stunning troupe of singers, dancers, and an amazing house band, the Atlantic Theatre Company production recaptures the magic of that reunion live and in person — and irresistibly, too.
As far back as the ‘70s, American guitarist Ry Cooder became aware that the world knew little of the island’s seductive mixture of tropical rhythms, raw emotions and authentic, acoustic world instruments – a far cry from the synthetic musical Velveeta that passed for Cuban music from the likes of I Love Lucy’s Ricky Ricardo. (We get a taste of it in an amusingly tacky performance of “El Cumbanchero” by the sister act at the center of Marco Ramirez’s libretto.)
The heroes of what one might call the island’s alternative sound, showcased in the film by Cooder and Wenders, are here on Broadway: the wickedly suave guitarist and tres star Compay Segundo; Ibrahim Ferrer, known as the Cuban Nat King Cole; the incomparable diva Omara Portuondo; “Picasso of the Keys” Ruben Gonzalez – all and more represented and honored in the musical, in both younger and older incarnations. They are in fact reborn. And the rest is history – or at least, history as fabulized here.
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★★☆ review here.]
Ramirez, author of the estimable play The Royale, starts out in the ’90s with young Juan De Marcos (Justin Cunningham), the actual A&R, musical director and bandleader for the original performances and recordings. He begs the long-retired Omara (Natalie Venetia Belcon, spectacular) to join the all-stars on a Golden Age tribute album. She refuses. To everyone’s surprise except the audience’s, she arrives next day and sings the roof off Egrem Studios. Only later do we learn that her lengthy absence from the music scene is tied to the Cuban Revolution…
…and boom! We are thrust back to the late 1950s, when the Portuondo Sisters are thrilling nightclubbing tourists, and young Omara (a dazzling Isa Antonetti) keeps sneaking out after hours to hobnob on the wrong side of town with the transgressive musicians at the you-know-which Social Club. Come New Year’s Eve, when (if you remember Godfather II) dictator Batista is ceding the nation to the rebels, ambitious sister Haydee (Ashley De La Rosa) demands they grab the last plane out to accept a U.S. record deal. But besotted with young Ibrahim (Wesley Wray), our heroine opts to remain, and a lengthy estrangement begins.
How much of this actually happened is anyone’s guess. (Omara actually did tour the States several times over the years, often with Haydee.) But you know what? It all feels emotionally true, the way old Hollywood movies always made audiences believe, for a hot minute, in sentimental nonsense. And the music brilliantly performed by our house band – silky, vital, insinuating – plays its part, with wistful songs of amor lost and regretted: “Love me like you did 20 years ago,” and so on. We’re meant to swoon, and we do.
Moreover, our knowledge of the decades of separation between the Cuban state and the Norteamericanos carries inescapable weight. The musical is no more overtly political than the Wenders film was, but the melancholy assessment of the older Compay (a superb Julio Monge) resonates: “I remember a time when there were all kinds of people on this island, doctors, poets, housewives, pickpockets. Until one day, there were only two types of Cubans: those who stayed, and those who left.” As developer/director Saheem Ali stages the scenes, we are permitted to hope that someday soon, Cuba will be whole again. Thereby Buena Vista Social Club gets its heft.
In the end, the fuel that powers both show and movie is of two types. There’s the sheer joy of folks of all ages coming together to celebrate a shared musical culture; the sense of community engendered is palpable and hits you where you live, even if you don’t understand a single word of Spanish lyrics. And through the swirling choreography of Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck, the ensemble of six youngsters repeatedly echo in movement the sainted emotions of the score.
Second, there’s the implicit message that talent has no sell-by date. Belcon, Monge, the ultra-mellow Mel Semé as Ibrahim, and all the over-40 members of the house band defy the years, just as the (even more venerable) Social Club celebrities of Wenders’ documentary do. All of them remind us, simply and beautifully, that when there’s a meaningful song in the air, neither performer nor listener ever truly grows old.
Buena Vista Social Club opened March 19, 2025 at the Schoenfeld Theatre. Tickets and information: buenavistamusical.com
