Chita Rivera
Chita’s Back!
Birdland, NYC, October 10, 2014
Reviewed by Joel Benjamin for Cabaret Scenes
Fifty-seven years since Chita Rivera starred in West Side Story? Impossible. Chita Rivera—and her inner Anita—was beyond youthful as she prowled, popped, sashayed and undulated at Birdland in Chita’s Back!, her musical gift to the world. She was energetic, enthusiastic, witty and…rhythmic. (“The one thing I won’t give up is my rhythm,” she shouted.)
Dressed in dazzling red, she began her visit to her Broadway triumphs with “A Lot of Livin’ to Do” (Strouse/Adams from Bye Bye Birdie), embroidering it with a mambo beat. She told wonderful stories about Leonard Bernstein, Kander & Ebb, Bob Fosse, Gwen Verdon and Geoffrey Holder, who had just passed away a few days before. From West Side Story she gave us “A Boy Like That” and “America” (Sondheim/Bernstein), dancing all over the Birdland stage.
She was a muse to Kander and Ebb who wrote wonderful musicals with her in mind, including The Rink, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman and, most recently, The Visit. Her “Chief Cook and Bottle Washer” was ferocious and “Class” was, if anything, more stingingly hilarious than in 1975. (She dedicated “Class” to the late, great Mary McCarty.) “I Don’t Remember You” poignantly connected her to the late Fred Ebb, and “Kiss of the Spider Woman” gave ample proof of why she won the Tony Award for that show. From The Visit she sang “Love and Love Alone,” a gentle anthem to…love.
Her daughter Lisa Mordente joined her in James Taylor’s gently philosophical “The Secret o’ Life,” providing a lovely, quiet moment.
Chita was superbly accompanied by guitarist/percussionist Michael Croiter, Jim Donica on bass, Dan Willis on saxophone and Michael Patrick Walker on piano.
