Review:
‘Buena Vista Social Club’
Brings the Soul of Cuba to Broadway
The spirit of Cuba is alive — and so are its ghosts — in the new stage musical Buena Vista Social Club, now playing at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. Directed by Saheem Ali and inspired by the landmark 1997 album of the same name, the production moves fluidly between past and present, sound and silence, memory and myth.
The show opens with a quiet masterstroke: the onstage band performing “El Carretero,” grounding the audience in music before a single word is spoken. It’s an intelligent choice by the creative team — one that signals this story will be led, first and foremost, by rhythm.
That’s fitting. The set, designed by Arnulfo Maldonado, is understated, allowing the musicians and dancers to command attention. And they do. With choreography by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck, and costumes by Dede Ayite, the ensemble delivers a vibrant sense of time and place without ever overreaching.
The book by Marco Ramirez (The Royale) moves between two pivotal years in Cuban history: 1956 and 1996. The first marks the decline of the Batista regime, while the second follows producer Juan de Marcos (Justin Cunningham) as he sets out to bring older Cuban musicians into the studio, recording music many had long been told was no longer relevant.
In flashbacks, we meet the younger incarnations of those musicians — Compay Segundo (Da’von T. Moody), Omara Portuondo (Isa Antonetti), and Ibrahim Ferrer (Wesley Wray) — as they come of age in a politically fraught Havana. Their bond, rooted in music and ancestry, carries through decades.
The narrative turns on a fictionalized backstory: the young Omara and her sister Haydee (Ashley De La Rosa) are singing polished, tourist-approved songs at the Tropicana, while across town, the pulse of Afro-Cuban tradition beats in spaces where dark-skinned Cubans — and their joy — are still marginalized. Even by family.
Omara is soon swept into the real heart of Havana’s music — the Buena Vista Social Club itself — thanks to Compay and a gifted pianist named Rubén (Leonardo Reyna). “There are no tourists,” she marvels. “They’re playing for us.” The line lands hard. It’s a revelation, and it sets the tone for everything that follows.
Then: heartbreak. A decision made in haste — a contract signed, a final flight from Cuba — changes everything for Omara and her sister. Her regret, and the decades-long silence that follows, shape the emotional undercurrent of the show.
In truth, Portuondo was not a teenager when she left Cuba. She was 26, and nearly 25 years younger than Compay Segundo. But Ramirez uses this imagined backstory to create a framework — not for romance (there are no sparks between them here), but for reckoning.
What does ignite? The music.
Across 22 songs, the show lets the work speak for itself. The dancing is electric. The band is tight. The performances are filled with pride, longing, and joy. Delgado and Peck’s choreography gives visual depth to the sound, while Ayite’s wardrobe design locates the characters squarely in their eras, from Havana’s glamorous clubs to the bare-bones recording studio.
By the time the story culminates at Carnegie Hall — with the Buena Vista Social Club musicians performing on a stage long dominated by European composers — the message is unmistakable: greatness has never been limited to one continent or one tradition. These Cuban composers and musicians, many long overlooked, earned their place not through permission, but through persistence and undeniable brilliance.
Buena Vista Social Club is not perfect. But it is perfection. If you know, you know.
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