“Dressed to Kill”
As I squeezed my way up the aisle through the ecstatic crowd
leaving The Cher Show I ran into a
fellow critic who greeted me with a big smile, saying, “Wasn’t that a shitload
of fun?!” I was forced to drop my critical guard and admit it damned sure was, and
my middle-aged daughter agreed, even noting later on Facebook that “it’s going
down as my all-time favorite.” |
| Jarrod Spector, Micaela Diamond. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
We’re talking about an eye-poppingly lavish, musically
engaging show whose producers, Flody Suarez and Jeffrey Seller, aren’t afraid
to go overboard in order to replicate the visual excess associated with the Goddess
of Pop. The Cher Show even
introduces a fashion show displaying a dazzling gallery of the most memorable, over-the-top
outfits master designer Bob
Mackie (who designed the show’s costumes) created during the glamorous diva’s
career.
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| Micaela Diamond and company. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Few shows since the heyday of the Ziegfeld Follies have
so imaginatively glorified the female form, a form the tall, slender, 72-year-old
Cher still has. Mackie’s significance in bolstering Cher’s image even qualifies
him to be a character in the show, where he’s one of a trio of characters enacted
by the terrific Michael Berrese.
 |
| Michael Berrese. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Talking of trios, that’s the approach taken by book writer
Rick Elice (Jersey Boys) in portraying Cher, a device
reminiscent of the one used to portray Donna Summer in another jukebox biomusical,
the soon-to-close Summer:
The Donna Summer Musical. Micaela Diamond is “Babe,” or the young Cher;
Teal Wicks is “Lady,” or mid-career Cher; and Stephanie J. Block is “Star,” or the
mature Cher, who aggregates all the best features of her earlier incarnations.
Thus do we watch a a
shy, dyslexic kid molt into the fabulous superstar with whom we’re most
familiar. If her unstoppable career is any indication, there may yet be other
Chers waiting to one day make their radiant entrance.
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| Stephanie J. Block and company. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Cleverly, Elice has the three Chers often appear in tandem, commenting
to each other on issues in the star’s life, and frequently singing together.
Each perfectly bewigged (by Charles G. LaPointe) performer offers a simulacrum
of Cher’s powerful, from the gut, belting voice.
Most of the attention is garnered by Block’s remarkable replication,
not only of Cher’s vocal qualities, but of her earthy personality,
ready wit, and striking appearance (post rhinoplasty, dental, and other procedures, of course). If hers isn’t a
Tony-qualifying performance, I haven’t been going to Broadway shows since 1945.
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| Stephanie J. Block. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Christine Jones and Brett J. Banakis’s efficient set of multiple
units serves admirably for the show’s numerous scenes, which depend largely on Kevin
Adams’s razzle-dazzle lighting and Darrel Maloney’s exciting projection design.
Backed by a bodacious bevy of Broadway’s buffest bodies, The Cher Show races headlong through the
highlights of Cher’s on- and offstage life.
We don’t meet her Armenian-American dad, but we do get to visit
with her glamorous, six-times married, show-biz mother, Georgia Holt (Emily
Skinner, sensational; she also does a stand-out Lucille Ball) and an alcoholic stepfather,
John Southall (Matthew Hydzik). We see the teenage Cher meeting Sonny Bono (Jarrod Spector, a
virtual Sonny avatar), the height-challenged singer-comedian over whom she towered.
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| Jarrod Spector. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
As telescoped here, after he helped her get started as a
backup singer for producer Phil Spector, Sonny used his acumen to team up with
her and rocket them to recording and (controversial) TV stardom, with numbers
like “The Shoop Shoop Song” and “I Got You, Babe.” Inevitably, greed, overwork,
and control issues ignited their divorce, rousing Cher to take her destiny into
her own hands.
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| Jarrod Spector, Teal Wicks. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Cher’s professional ascent and temporary decline, which even
led to her doing hairspray infomercials, is tracked in mostly bite-sized pieces,
as is her climb to acting on Broadway and in movies (where she won an Oscar)
and the big tours she’s done over the past two decades. A lot of ground gets
covered late in the show as time moves forward to the insistent rhythm of “And
the Beat Goes On.”
There are also her love
affairs with drug-using, singer-guitarist Gregg Allman (also
Hydzik), of the long, blonde hair, and, among others, the one—when she was 40—with
23-year-old Rob Camilletti (Michael Campayno), a bagel maker from Queens. All
the while, we see her struggling to find the impossible balance between the
demands of supernova stardom and those of being a mother, wife, and (more or less) normal
person.
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| Teal Wicks, Stephanie J. Block, Micaela Diamond. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Musically, The Cher
Show, which contains 35 tunes, frequently
(although not always) incorporates the
star’s best-known hits into the narrative to accent major events, like having her
sing “My Baby Shot Me Down” when she and Sonny break up. Her Armenian ancestry
inspires the song “Half-Breed,” and you can figure out how “If I Could Turn
Back Time” or “When the Money’s Gone” could fit in.
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| Company of The Cher Show. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
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| Ashley Blair Fitzgerald. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
With smashing direction by Jason Moore and showy, Vegas-like
choreography by Christopher Gattelli (who gives Ashley Blair Fitzgerald a
showstopping Apache routine to “Dark Lady”), The Cher Show delivers the kind of slam-bang flash and glitter you
expect from a musical about the Goddess of Pop.
Cher fans will, of course, miss a few personal details the
show glosses over, but there’s enough gossipy juice in its two-hours and 20
minutes to satisfy most people’s curiosity, set hearts racing, and get toes
tapping. My friend said it and I’ll say it again: The Cher Show is “a shitload of fun.”
 |
| Matthew Hydzik, Emily Skinner, Jarrod Spector, Micaela Diamond, Stephanie J. Block, Teal Wicks, Michael Barrese, Michael Campayno. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
OTHER VIEWPOINTS:
Neil Simon Theatre
250 W. 52nd St., NYC
Open run