I wouldn’t have minded if the musical had stayed in the 1956 social club setting, but there was a lot of time-traveling to the Tropicana Club and to 1996 for the studio creation of the group’s album. Some of these jumps were fruitful.  Any chance for the commanding Natalie Ventia Belcon, as the elder Omara Portuondo, to show off her pipes was welcome. But in general, the plot meandered in its attempt to create backstories for so many characters.  The most successful ones, Omara and Ibrahim Ferrer, had the most fleshed-out tales. (Olly Sholotan, as the Young Ibrahim, was especially captivating.) But even their stories had holes. Overall, the plot was sketchy and overly sentimental. At the end, I had more questions than tears to shed.    

The music from the original album is so powerful, I wished to hear more of it played by the full band. As it was, so many character-building detours showcased less important songs and dances than the ones that could have been. Kenya Browne and Danaya Esperanza, as the younger Omara and her sister Haydee, performed a few soulless “duets for tourists” in garish, matching gowns and Carmen Miranda headgear. They were like a joyless version of the sisters in “White Christmas.” Dancers in baby ballerina dresses (the costumes were by Dede Ayite) subbed in for them in a few flashback scenes when the elder Omara was singing, and it seemed a waste to have these shadowy body doubles doing lyrical passages on the cramped stage to muted versions of big Buena Vista Social Club hits like “Chan Chan.” The orchestration and the dancing felt shoehorned into plot devices. Marco Ramirez did the book, and perhaps this show would have been more successful if it were more of a straightforward jukebox musical. In one scene, the older Omara was in the studio auditioning a flautist on the tune “Candela.” The band was cooking, and she started to groove to the swelling music as her doubt turned to joy. Like Omara, this was a show that wanted to jam and move more than it allowed itself to.