We’ve got you, babe and other ‘Cher Show’ delights
Three ages of Cher: Catherine Ariale (left) is Lady, Morgan Scott (center) is Star and Ella Perez as Babe in The Cher Show at the Curran Theatre as part of the BroadwaySF season. Photo by Meredith Mashburn Photography
Cher has had such a momentous, tumultuous, shape-shifting career that it takes three actors to portray her in The Cher Show, a jukebox musical bio that flamed out on Broadway after about eight months and is now on tour in a new production.
The show now at the Curran Theatre as part of the BroadwaySF season for a swift four-day run is a non-union cast (meaning they’re not members of Actors’ Equity Association) and with an almost entirely new creative team, including a new director, choreographer, set designer, lighting designer and sound designer. You could say this is A Cher Show if not The Cher Show.
Thankfully (and invaluably), costume designer Bob Mackie, who won a Tony Award for his work here, designed both the Broadway production and the tour. You can’t have Cher without Mackie, and his glorious, feathered, spangled and occasionally minuscule creations are a reason to see the show.
The Beat Goes On: Lorenzo Pugliese is Sonny and Ariale as Lady-era Cher. Photo by Meredith Mashburn Photography
Cher fans need no convincing that this 2 1/2-hour celebration of the indefatigable “warrior goddess” is worth their time. For the rest of you, I’m not sure what to tell you. Jersey Boys co-author Rick Elice has fashioned a mid-level concept here with the tri-Cher approach to encompass her three primary eras: the humble SoCal beginnings that led to Sonny Bono; the successful music and TV era of the late ‘60s into the late ‘70s; and the still-unfolding icon era that includes an Oscar (for Moonstruck), ‘80s comeback hits, even more ‘90s comeback hits and beyond (the show doesn’t get into her Mamma Mia 2 cameo, her recent invitation into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame or her hugely successful Christmas album last year).
Happily, Elice blends the three Chers within each era, so they get to comment on the action as it unfolds. “It's so much easier to talk to myself when I'm all here,” says the latter-day Cher dubbed Star (the younger Cher is Babe and middle-period Cher is Lady). So there’s a programmed informality, a rehearsed insouciance (not unlike Cher herself) built into the storytelling, which is appealing. It’s what you might call a Cher and Cher and Cher alike situation.
From there, it’s pretty much jukebox theater as we’ve come to know it from musicals based on the likes of Tina Turner, Neil Diamond, Donna Summer, Carole King. etc. Sometimes Cher sings songs in performance, like in concert or on a TV show or shooting a video (“I Got You Babe,” “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,” “I Found Someone”). Other times, Cher hits are turned into musical theater material for characters to sing from their hearts (“Half Breed,” “Bang Bang [My Baby Shot Me Down],” “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me”). And then there’s the obligatory curtain call mega-mix, which sends the fans into paroxysms of joy.
Turning Back Time: Ariale (front left), Scott (front center) and Perez (front right) and the cast of The Cher Show. Photo by Meredith Mashburn Photography
The biggest storytelling leaps are turning Cher’s ill-advised marriage to Gregg Allman into a Western for the song “Just Like Jesse James” and re-fashioning “Dark Lady” (a hit murder ballad) into a dueling duet for Sonny and Gregg. The first one works pretty well, as if it were a sketch on her variety show. The second is a jaw-dropping disaster.
The three leads do their best to imitate Cher without overdoing it. Morgan Scott is our primary Cher, or Star, and she’s got a powerful voice and can sling Cher’s distinctive humor pretty well. Catherine Ariale overcomes her bad wig (not nearly long enough or heavy enough) to convey the Cher that so many of us came to love during the TV show era, and Ella Perez is a powerhouse singer who dazzles more than the other two. Her star turn is on a long Fosse-esque “The Beat Goes On” that digests Cher’s post-Sonny life.
Speaking of the late Congressman/Mayor Bono, Lorenzo Pugliese has the voice (and the body!) that Sonny probably always wished for, and he treads the tricky line of being a lovable bad guy.
As is often the case in star bios, the climb from obscurity to stardom is the most narratively engaging part, and once Cher hits on the highs and lows of the ‘70s, the story skips along from event to event, from man to man without ever giving us any real insight into what gives Cher her fortitude to keep going and going at such velocity. Instead we get repeated platitudes from Cher’s mom (a game Lucy Werner, who also briefly plays Lucille Ball) like, “The song keeps you strong.”
If a musical can be a combination of a gay pride parade, a fashion show and a women’s empowerment march, the result might looks something like The Cher Show, and that’s not a minor thing. There’s fun to be had here, certainly, but it would be nearly impossible for any artistic creation to be in any way bigger, better or bolder than the legend herself.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
The Cher Show continues a short run through June 23 at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St., San Francisco, as part of the BroadwaySF season. Running time: 2 hours and 40 minutes (including one 15-minute intermission). Tickets are $46-$144 (subject to change). Visit broadwaysf.com or call 888-746-1799.
