Chita Rivera, The Dancer’s Life

I’m Isa Goldberg reporting on CHITA RIVERA, THE DANCER’S LIFE on Broadway.

Chita Rivera is amazing: singing and dancing with a vigor that is ageless. So, watching her Broadway review is a huge thrill, especially when she performs scenes from WEST SIDE STORY. What a classic! As her career includes some of musical theater’s greatest moments, there’s no dearth of material; scenes from BYE BYE BIRDIE, SWEET CHARITY and KISS OF A SPIDERWOMAN, unravel before our very eyes.

Richard Amaro, a sinuous looking dancer, plays her leading men, including her father. Just as Chita had been when she was starting out, dancing for Elaine Stritch and Gwen Verdon, both of whom she recounts fondly as people who helped her to take shape, the gifted chorus too is adoring of their Star.

While Act I will leave you breathless, Act II disappoints at first. As the grande- dame philosophizing about relationships with men, she’s less compelling. And the playwright’s chronicle of the great choreographers Chita’s worked with feels like a museum piece. Also, her musings on theater sound more like McNally, the playwright, than Rivera, the dancer.

On the other hand, her personal stories --how she became Chita Rivera from Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero, a kid from a big Puerto Rican family – are completely believable. So is the star gossip – her affair with Sammy Davis Jr. and the sex appeal of Antonio Banderas. You feel like she’s talking right to you.

And when she’s performing, recreating any one of her great roles, she becomes Chita Rivera captivating with her gaze and gesture. As she says in the end, “these women have set me free to stand on the stage and show you me.”

That’s This Week on Broadway. I’m Isa Goldberg.