You don’t have to be a fan of Cuban music, or even understand Spanish, to get caught up in the infectious, rhythmic joy that is Buena Vista Social Club, the new musical based on Wim Wenders’s 1999 documentary of the same name. Like that film, the show is a glorified concert to showcase the talents of a 12-piece onstage band, a cast of wonderfully soulful singers, and a half dozen dancers who shine in a series of routines (choreographed by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck) that artfully blend Afro-Cuban, ballet, and ballroom styles.
Wenders’s film had no plot to speak of, focusing instead on live performances by veteran Cuban musicians supplemented by interstitial interviews with roughly a dozen different artists. But director Saheem Ali, who also developed the show, and book writer Marco Ramirez have introduced a wisp of a plot that centers on a handful of the artists whom American guitarist Ry Cooder reassembled in 1996 for a recording session that produced a Grammy-winning album, a world tour, and a revival of interest in the lilting melodies, rhythms and harmonies of Cuban music.
That story centers on the dynamo Omara Portuondo (the regal Natalie Venetia Belcon), who appears only briefly in the film but here becomes a central figure who recalls both Ma Rainey and Effie in Dreamgirls for her earthy groundedness. In flashbacks, we see a younger Omara (Isa Antonetti) perform at tourist-friendly Havana clubs like the Tropicana with her well-heeled and ambitious sister, Haydee (Ashley De La Rosa), while also sneaking out to music clubs on the seedier side of town to perform more authentic versions of classic Cuban tunes with the likes of guitarist-singer Compay Segundo (Da’Von T. Moody), pianist Rubén González (Leonardo Reyna), and singer Ibrahim Ferrer (Wesley Wray), whose darker skin tone relegates him to backup duties in venues like the Tropicana and forces him to make ends meet by busking on Havana’s piers. When the Fidel Castro’s revolution erupts in 1959 and Haydee flees with a Columbia Records contract in hand, Omara decides to stay behind. “I want to make music for us,” she tells Ibrahim, her tentative love interest. “I’m done doing it for everyone else.”
These scenes set in the late ’50s are interspersed with others that take place in 1996, when bandleader Juan de Marcos (Justin Cunningham) is assembling veteran musicians for a new recording and Omara seems oddly reluctant to rejoin the old gang. Ramirez’s book scenes have been substantially trimmed since the 2023 production at Off Broadway’s Atlantic Theater Company, and not entirely for the better. They now read as clunky and somewhat perfunctory, an effect that’s exacerbated by the recasting of virtually all of the younger characters with performers who are sensational singers but seem awkward as traditional actors.
The older cast members, most of them returning from the Off Broadway production, are truly wonderful. In addition to the radiant Belcon, Mel Semé brings a soulful sense of longing to the elder Ibrahim, still busking on the malecon of Havana, while Julio Monge injects an air of relaxed, rakish charm to Compay. When Omara deflects a compliment by telling Compay, “you’ve gone soft in your old age,” he quickly replies, “Not everywhere.” Curiously, “Picasso on the keys” Gonzaléz is here depicted as a slow-moving, non-speaking invalid whose days tickling the ivories are but a memory. (In reality, he played piano on all of the 1996 Buena Vista Social Club sessions and continued performing and recording for several more years after that; he died in 2003.)
While the narrative framework for the show may be rickety, the music is the real star here — bolstered by Arnulfo Maldonado’s scenic design, Dede Ayite’s colorful costumes, and Tyler Micoleau’s muted lighting that fool you into thinking your far from Manhattan in some dark alley in Old Havana with a cuba libre at your side. The score, which include familiar tunes from the Wenders film but also additional Cuban classics, showcases the depths and variety of the island’s music in the last century, from toe-tapping dance numbers to soulful ballads that evoke universal feelings of heartache and loss. While all of the book scenes are in English, the songs are entirely in Spanish, without supertitles, but they register clearly for those (like me) who don’t understand a word of Spanish. These are not diagetic songs, intended to advance the plot or our understanding of the characters; instead, they convey the mood of the moment in a way that perhaps holds even more power. (Still, Anglo speakers and fans alike will welcome an insert in the Playbill that helpfully details the history and message behind each song.)
Ali is smart to place the band right up on stage since they sometimes upstage the rest of the cast. That’s particularly true of Renesito Avich, a 35-year-old Cuban-born phenom who’s given a few lines as a standout session musician in the 1996 recording studio scenes but who quickly emerges as the heart and soul of the band. His skillful, rapid-fingered guitar playing on the Act 2 opener “El Cuarto de Tula” is a bravura act of showmanship that manages to be both braggadocious and modest, as he generously incorporates the rest of the band in call-and-response moments to elevate the entire song. His love of Cuban music proves infectious, and Buena Vista Social Club celebrates that tradition while introducing it to new ears and new hearts. ★★★★☆
BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB
Schoenfeld Theatre, Broadway
Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes (1 intermission)
Tickets on sale through Jan. 4, 2026 for $59 to $321
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