Saw "On Your Feet" Wednesday - Gloria and these songs are placed in my life's time line like Jersey Boys was for my parents. Interestingly Beautiful's first act was theirs and second act mine. I had a great time at On Your Feet for just those reasons - it was like comfort food. Theatrically artistically speaking it was a bit like junk food. You know it's not good for you but you devour it willingly entusiastically and love it.
But truth be told it really is LifeTime television on Broadway and because we know the ending before we go in theres not much tension driving the show. I was hoping the book was going to be smarter and if it couldn't tell us something we didn't know tell the story with some flair and originality.
Performances are all good the lead has the perfect voice and presence but isn't given much to show her acting chops if she has any. The actor playing Emelio has charm galore but falls short in the singing department.
The staging is proficient, the choreography while filled with great latin and disco dance steps is lacking in production number construction. They are simply straight up dance numbers, no build, blasé buttons.
On Wednesday night while the first act Conga and second act finale got the audience going all of the numbers in between received what I would characterize as polite short applause by Broadway standards. It felt like they wasted the good will of the audience getting excited by the memory of a song and did nothing to raise the stakes theatrically.
Not sure what the Latin market is for Broadway shows but I can see this satisfying Gloria fans and tourists. For those who thrive on Hamilton, Fun Home, Spring Awakening, Curious Incident type shows it's disappointing.
But I do love my junk food and glad I saw it. I'm thinking this will run.
Up In One
Updated On: 10/10/15 at 01:22 PM