Review: ON YOUR FEET! at St. Mark's Players

Mario Font has directed a lively production of the 2015 jukebox/autobiographical musical On Your Feet!. It's the story of Gloria and Emilio Estefan's lives and careers as they evolved from local Miami, Cubano musicians in the 1970s and 80s into crossover artists, and then into internationally recognized, Grammy-winning superstars.

Ramah Johnson's projections suggest where and when the action takes place with just a date and a postcard-like image--a great solution since the show takes place in the cavernous nave of an 1889 Richardsonian brick church--an architectural masterpiece that no scenery on earth could dominate, nor should. (Some of the stained glass windows are by Tiffany!) Joan Lawrence's costumes likewise accurately document the decades of the Estefans from the barrios of Havana and Miami (colorful cotton dresses--full skirts, cap sleeves, 1959-the 60s) to some serious 1960s taffeta and crinoline towards the sequins that have prevailed on world stages from 1980s-forever. Wisely, none of the women wear those dyed to match 4" heels that matched the taffeta dresses at the prom but could not be danced in--everyone here wears character shoes, because, well, On Your Feet!

And Michael Page's choreography works this cast (werk!). At times it leans a bit too far toward "Broadway" (fewer lifts, perhaps; more mambo); most of the Estefans' music is best complemented by Latin dance vocabulary. But Page, along with Font, ensures the energy that this show requires, and the ensemble brings it (ably led by the dancing of Missy Correa, see photo).

Harold Walbert and the 8-piece band he conducts from the piano provide a very polished "sound machine." Theatricalrights.com, from whom the company has necessarily acquired the musical scores they use, has pre-orchestrated the songs without always including the melody line for the band. Verdi, por el amor de Dios, always made sure someone in the orchestra was playing what the singers were singing, but this cast is trapped in a somewhat karaoke situation. The absence of melody underneath them frequently gets these singers into intonation trouble, especially given the opening night technical problems with the sound.

Simply put, the microphones kept turning off in the middle of a spoken sentence or a sung line. Or they came back on after an actor had already begun speaking or singing. The audience could only hear part of the show during Act I; after intermission, there was less on and off, but more inaudibility because the microphones were just off for most of Act II. The actors (battle pay, please) didn't miss a beat through any of this, but they deserve a stable, operative sound system (19th century churches offer no acoustical help whatsoever). Playing Gloria's father, José, Renée "Kieth" Flores beautifully sings his duet with Gloria (Missy Correa), "When Something Comes into your Life." In Act II, while hoping for Gloria's recovery from the 1990 bus accident that nearly killed her, Maggie Colombo (as her Mami) and Gerardo Mijares-Shafai (as husband Emilio) elegantly share choruses of "If I Never Got to Tell You"--a terrific ballad written much later by Estefan with her own daughter. Wonderful moments such as these will have their due when the techies fix the sound; even without a kosher sound system (and because the audience sings them too, of course), "Oye" and "Conga" can pretty much be heard in Rockville. On Your Feet! runs 2 and a half hours including intermission.