REVIEW: The Cher Show pays tribute to an american icon
“The three lead actors are sensational and sound magnificent together, all with their own catch in the throat and deep belting power.”
There is a sneak attack of glamor and showbiz wow that happened at Proctors this past week. The Cher Show slipped into town for two nights and, just like the lady herself, the show knocks your eyes out when you least expect it.
As with many of the jukebox musicals, the lead role is handled by three actors playing the superstar in three different phases of their life, here named Star (Morgan Scott), Lady (Catherine Ariale) and Babe (Ella Perez). But, unlike most stagings of a recording artist’s rise to fame where the baton is passed from one to the other, these three are onstage throughout the show taking on various guises and lending support as Cher moves out of her house at 16 and conquers Sunset Strip, the Wall of Sound, Swinging London, Las Vegas, Television, Broadway, the Oscars and MTV. Six decades of hits are well represented by Music Director Sarah Wussow with “I Got You Babe,” “The Beat Goes On,” “Dark Lady,” “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,” “Half Breed,” “Just Like Jesse James,” “Strong Enough,” “I Found Someone,” “Take Me Home” and most moving and effectively, “Believe.”
The three lead actors are sensational and sound magnificent together, all with their own catch in the throat and deep belting power. I enjoyed each incarnation immensely and they all got plenty of opportunities to shine with 35 songs. It’s a fun game on the car ride home to pick out which Cher is your favorite and why. Mine was the middle years Cher, here named Lady (Catherine Ariale), who had a distant cool manner that struck me as deeply authentic, natural and highly appealing. All three contribute to the “warrior Goddess” that she refers to herself as in Rick Elice’s winning script.
The show has a variety show feel to it as characters and scenes slide on and off stage and the three Chers act as presenters of their own life. There is an off-handed charm about the woman, the script and the presentation. It’s almost as if we’re being set up to misjudge the talent, power and indomitability of the superstar…and she wows us again.
You don’t really see her working; her comic skills seem to be taken as natural and improvised. The large groups of women in the audience cheer as Cher triumphs again and again. They interpret her career as a feminist statement and you hear them roar.
A few other characters make strong impressions, especially Lorenzo Pugliese who plays Sonny Bono, contributing to the shaggy road-to-stardom story as the controlling and charming first husband who launched her career. Kristin Rose Kelleher strikes a strong impression as Cher’s mother Georgia and a cameo as Lucille Ball giving advice from one television entrepreneur to another.
Most curious and fabulous is the character of Bob Mackie played by Tyler Pirrung (who doubles as Robert Altman as well) who also costumed the show – Mackie that is. Here is a man who is a prime contributor to the scenic look and enjoyment of the show, a character within the plot and (as his dozens of outrageous Cher costumes take over the stage for the number “Ain’t Nobody’s Business”) part of the content that marks a turning point in the heroine’s life and career trajectory. Mention should also be made of the oddness of seeing Gregg Allman (Zach Zaromatides) turn up in this story singing snatches of “Midnight Rider” and “Ramblin’ Man.”
I had a great time with this funny, appealing tribute to a most sui generis American star who has occupied a place in our culture for a very long time.
