‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Ana Villafañe as Gloria Estefan. Photo: Matthew Murphy

ON YOUR FEET!
THE STORY OF GLORIA & EMILIO ESTEFAN
Featuring music produced & recorded by Gloria & Emilio Estefan
Book by Alexander Dinelaris
Directed by Jerry Mitchell
Choreography by Sergio Trujillo
Marquis Theatre
46th Street (between Broadway & 8th Avenue)
877-250-2929, www.onyourfeetmusical.com

By Scott Harrah

You’ll shake your body and do that “Conga” and yes, the “Rhythm is Gonna Get You.” If you grew up in the 1980s or 1990s listening to the infectious songs of Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine and her subsequent solo work, you’ll overlook Alexander (Birdman) Dinelaris’ boilerplate book of this energetic show. Why? Because Gloria and Emilio Estefan have enough golden oldie hits in their songbook to make us disregard the paper-thin storyline of their rise, fall and rise from the Cuban barrios of Miami to international stardom, with all the proverbial bumps in between. On Your Feet! The Story of Gloria and Emilio Estefan is one of the few feel-good Broadway shows in an otherwise lackluster fall season.

Granted, as a jukebox musical, the narrative in On Your Feet! is not as seamless as Jersey Boys or even Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, but it doesn’t matter. Broadway has never mounted a jukebox show with a Latin, salsa-tinged flavor until this, and the Estefans were indeed trailblazers that paved the way for Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Shakira and all the Latin pop crossover stars that followed. When the focus is on music and dancing, the show more than delivers with colorful costumes, Sergio Trujillo’s ebullient choreography, and a full Latin band, complete with all the inimitable Cuban percussion, flawless salsa sounds and a horn section, offering, to borrow an iconic line from “Conga,” “the rhythm of the island/And like sugarcane so sweet.”

Newcomer Ana Villafañe makes a superb debut here since she looks and sounds a lot like the real Gloria Estefan, and Ms. Villafañe shows off fine acting chops in numerous dramatic showdowns with family members. However, Josh Segarra, as her famous husband, looks nothing like the real Emilio Estefan. Mr. Segarra is also not much of a singer, but he is so drop-dead handsome and has such an endearing accent that audiences won’t care. Ms. Estefan’s story, while inspiring, is the typical rags-to-riches tale: Born in Cuba, young Gloria and her family fled to Miami as Fidel Castro rose to power.

Most of Act One deals with young Gloria’s clashes with her overprotective mother Gloria Fajardo, played with spunk by Andréa Burns (In the Heights), and Gloria’s dream of becoming a singer. Her mother does not approve of Gloria making music with Emilio and his Miami Latin Boys (later to become the famous Miami Sound Machine once Gloria became the lead vocalist), particularly since Mrs. Fajardo was performing as a nightclub singer in Havana, but had to put her own dreams on hold as the Batista government crumbled. Grandmother Consuelo (the winning Alma Cuervo) encourages Gloria to pursue her dreams of writing and singing music. Meanwhile, Gloria finishes a college degree in psychology while still performing on the club circuit.

We see Gloria and Emilio become stars in the music world throughout Latin America, but they encounter resistance from the record label when trying to release their first English-language single, “Dr. Beat.” They finally release the song, working hard to get it played on English-language Miami radio stations and in dance clubs across the country, but music industry executives tell them the song is too “dance” for mainstream America. When the group finally releases the Latin-tinged “Conga” (perhaps their biggest hit ever), the rest is history. The Estefans are on their way to superstardom by the end of Act One, leaving everything on a high note as cast members, including a little Jewish Bar Mitzvah boy in a yarmulke, move offstage and pull random audience members into a conga line for “Conga.”

Act Two mostly chronicles the Estefans’ marital struggles as Gloria becomes increasingly exhausted from touring, and fights with her husband and mother. In the winter of 1990, while on a tour bus on a snowy Pennsylvania highway, a horrible accident lands Gloria in the hospital, with a spinal injury and the possibility of paralysis, a nine-hour surgery and months of physical therapy. You already know the rest: Not only did Gloria recover, she went on to become an even bigger star, making a comeback on the American Music Awards, and singing another of her mega hits, “Reach,” at the Closing Ceremony of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics in front of a global audience of millions. She made a hit solo record, reinventing such disco classics as “Turn the Beat Around” and the pop standard “Everlasting Love,” plus did many more sold-out world tours and Las Vegas gigs.

All the Gloria Estefan favorites are here, from “Bad Boys” to “1-2-3,” “Get On Your Feet,” “Words Get in the Way,” “Coming Out of the Dark,” and more. Gloria Estefan has won seven Grammy Awards and sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, so she is more than worthy of being a “jukebox heroine.” Cynics may write the show off as another excuse to peddle tried-and-true songs to the masses, but so what? Besides, Tony Award winner Jerry Mitchell directs everything nicely with his usual entertaining touches, making On Your Feet! a “Gloria-fied” hit. If you are a Gloria Estefan fan, you must get “On Your Feet!“…and get tickets.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published November 12, 2015
Reviewed at press performance on November 11, 2015

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Ana Villafañe (center) & cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Ana Villafañe. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Ana Villafañe (center) & cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Ana Villafañe. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Ana Villafañe. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ The cast of the new musical. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Carlos E. Gonzalez & Ana Villafañe. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Alexandra Suarez as Little Gloria. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Andréa Burns. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Ana Villafañe & Josh Segarra (center) & cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ The cast of the musical based on the life and music of Gloria & Emilio Estefan. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Andréa Burns. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Josh Segarra & Alma Cuervo. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Josh Segarra & Ana Villafañe. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Josh Segarra & Ana Villafañe. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Ana Villafañe (center) & cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ The cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘ON YOUR FEET!’ Ana Villafañe. Photo: Matthew Murphy

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CLASS ‘KLOWN’: John Leguizamo in his one-man Broadway show ‘Ghetto Klown’ at the Lyceum. Photo: Carol Rosegg

By Scott Harrah

John Leguizamo is a man of many talents, star of stage, TV, and screen, but primarily known to New Yorkers for the Off-Broadway shows Mambo Mouth and Spic-O-Rama, and his previous Broadway credits Freak and Sexaholix…A Love Story.  His latest Broadway, one-man extravaganza, Ghetto Klown, is the 46-year-old’s most serious effort to date, as it depicts the ups and downs of his career and his roots as a Colombian/Puerto Rican growing up in Queens in what he aptly describes as “a cautionary tale.”

Don’t come to Ghetto Klown  expecting a 100% accurate depiction of the star’s career, as the Playbill itself contains an “Author’s Note” from Mr. Leguizamo admitting that “some moments in the piece fall out of their original timeline to create a more original narrative.” This is evident in everything from the show’s depiction of the decades of his life, from the 1960s well up to the 2000s.  Snippets of songs we know were 1980s hits, for example, are played when we’re supposed to be watching him reenact moments of the 1990s.  In addition, jokes are made about points in his career that we know are not actually chronological; and he takes much creative license with some of the facts.  However, it would be petty to focus on these things because there’s so much to love here about Mr. Leguizamo’s exuberant energy and manic stage presence.

More than anything, Ghetto Klown is a humorous, spoken-word autobiography that covers the highlights of his life, dishing in a sort of macho, Kathy-Griffin-style way about studying under Lee Strasberg and working with many big-name stars and directors in Hollywood:  Don Johnson on TV’s “Miami Vice”; Al Pacino in Carlito’s Way;  Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything…Julie Newmar (in which he played drag queen Chi Chi Rodriguez); Australian auteur Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.  He talks about working with people like Stephen Seagal and Kurt Russell in Executive Decision (and neither is exactly painted in a positive light), but watches what he says when discussing why Sean Penn slapped him while they were both filming Brian DePalma’s Casualties of War.

The celebrity name-dropping is the show’s high point, but there’s much more here than just Mr. Leguizamo talking about his successes.  He also covers some of his biggest failures, most notably the short-lived Fox TV series “House of Buggin’ ” in 1995.  The show was supposed to be a Latino version of “In Living Color,” but Mr. Leguizamo wouldn’t budge when Fox executives reportedly wanted him to ax some cast members, after the first few episodes, and he left the series and Fox turned it into “MADtv.”

He pays homage to his Latino roots throughout, and there are a few Spanish jokes that only a New York audience (familiar with the rich Latin American culture here) could appreciate.  Some of the material about his personal life, endless stories about his wife, remembrances of his late grandfather, a childhood friend, and his bouts with depression and inner demons, become repetitive after awhile.

Director Fisher Steven mostly gives Mr. Leguizamo free rein to flesh out the many characters and delightful details of his life. Although some of his anecdotes may seem far-fetched, Mr. Leguizamo still makes us laugh and packs lots of gritty entertainment into more than two hours by simply telling jokes, baring his soul, sipping beer, with nothing but a few screen projections and old hip-hop songs to help him out.  Ghetto Klown will most certainly please Mr.Leguizamo’s many fans, the people who will truly appreciate his nonstop zaniness.  However, the show lacks the vision of such earlier works as Sexaholix…A Love Story and Freak. Ghetto Klown would be tighter and more streamlined if director Fisher Stevens had shortened some of the skits and trimmed the extemporaneous material.

Published March 28, 2011
Reviewed at press performance on March 25, 2011

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