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THE BAR AT BUENA VISTA, Lyric Theatre, June 5
By John Shand, June 7, 2004 - 3:44PM
The Bar at Buena Vista turns Cuban music into a lifestyle option. As a concert, it was like an aerobics class, with one performer after another insisting 
we stand, clap, sway, sing or take dance lessons, sometimes - challengingly - all at once.
This was always dance music, a fact that has been lost in our rush to place it and much else in concert halls. The stage contained a bandstand, bar and dance floor.
On the bandstand the music oozed from a traditional septet, featuring the miraculous Jose "Maracaibo" Castaneda on tres guitar, and occasionally the legendary pianist Guillermo Rubalcabal. Bandleader Luis Frank competently handled most of the singing, making way for show- stopping appearances from Siomara Valdes and 86-year-old Reynaldo Creagh.
Valdes is still blessed with a voice that could summon a truant husband from a bar a kilometre away, while Creagh commanded the stage (and a standing ovation) at every appearance, with a voice also still astonishingly robust.
A highlight was El Paralytico, the story of which he acted out by first dancing with the aid of his walking stick, then triumphantly throwing the stick away. He recovered in a rocking chair.
Among the five dancers (led by the alarmingly thin-hipped Eric Turro) there were certainly no hang-ups about human bodies as sex objects: that much was taken for granted, so they could get on with the real business of showcasing the eroticism inherent in the music.
Cuban music, after all, is about three things: sex, partying and sex (even, apparently, in one's twilight years). Much shaking of booties and grinding of pelvises alternated with impressive feats of agility.
Presiding at the bar, meanwhile, was Lucas, the original Buena Vista barman, eight of whose cocktail recipes were printed in the program to help us maintain the lifestyle after the event. The showbusiness aspects, such as almost every round of applause being vigorously cued from the stage, palled somewhat. But the rhythmic fluidity and sophistication of the music was well served, and the older performers had an undeniable magic.
INTOXICATING TRIBUTE TO OLD HAVANA
By Polly Coufos
31 May 2004
What The Bar At Buena Vista proves is that these musical archaeologists had barely scratched the surface in discovering the talent, both old and new, to be found in this Caribbean country. Part concert, part semi-scripted musical, this show was as intoxicating as the rum served at the bar to the left of the stage. On the right was a bandstand with Luis Frank's white hot ensemble which features several generations of Cuba's finest traditional musicians, including percussionists Carlos Gonzales and Odelkis Reve and young hot shot trumpeter Julio Padron. Add to that star turns by veterans such as 82-year-old pianist Maestro Rubalcaba, 86-year-old singer Reynaldo Creagh and diva Siomara Avilla Valdes Lescay, and several jaw-dropping dance routines by Eric Turro's troupe, and The Bar At Buena Vista is a passport to another time, another place. The staging gave the feeling that the audience's seats were within the walls of a jumping downtown Havana club of some 40 or 50 years ago. As several of the 18-strong cast lit up cigars, the arresting aroma of the foot-long stogies captured the sense of smell of those in the front rows while their sight and hearing was taken care of by the artists in the spotlight.
THE BAR AT BUENA VISTA
By Jessica Nicholas
July 2, 2004
Her Majesty's Theatre, June 30, until Sunday
Young is beautiful. Everybody knows it. Except, perhaps, in Cuba, where beauty is not necessarily equated with flawless skin or wafer-thin profiles.
And - as the Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon clearly showed - age is no barrier when it comes to creating unforgettable music.
Not that there isn't youthful talent to burn in Toby Gough's concert-style recreation of Havana's most famous bar.
The crisp septet that provides the soundtrack is led by Luis Frank, a charismatic "sonero" (and second-generation member of the Buena Vista Social Club) with a superbly fluid and expressive voice.
Young trumpeter Julio Padron provides several musical highlights, his instrument leaping over the rhythm section in exuberant riffs or working in subtle counterpoint as a second or third vocal line.
And Eric Turro and his lithe crew remind us that dancing is an essential ingredient of Cuban music (though the choreography is definitely geared towards highlighting the feats of balance and dexterity of the male dancers).
But the real stars of the show are the veterans of the "golden age" of Cuban music (the 1940s and '50s) that has seen a stunning renaissance over the past decade. There's 80-year-old Jose "Maracaibo" Castaneda, still producing agile, eloquent phrases on his tres guitar. There's Maestro Guillermo Rubalcaba, whose piano solos glowed with graceful invention, and whose light touch brimmed with rhythmic vitality.And there's the endlessly energetic Siomara Valdes, dazzling in gold sequins and big hair, who wound the audience up with her majestic voice and big personality.
But the most fervent applause was reserved for the "father" of the band, 86-year-old singer Reinaldo Creagh.
His beautifully cut suit, quiet smile and marvellously rich, mature voice marked him as a man of impeccable elegance, but when his signature tune El Paralytico heated up, he threw down his walking stick and gyrated his pelvis to cheekily suggest just what it is that keeps him in such fine form. And, of course, there's the man behind the bar: Arturo Lucas (a relative youngster, still in his early 70s), who was head barman at the Buena Vista Social Club for almost a decade.
On stage, he introduces musicians, tells stories and helps create a convivial cocktail that is part music and dance, part raw sexuality and part pure joie de vivre, Cuban style.
The Bar at Buena Vista continues at Her Majesty's Theatre until Sunday, and returns for a final show on July 17.
