The lights dim, the trio starts to play "I Won’t Dance" and the audience erupts as a tiny figure comes on stage and starts to sing: Chita Rivera begins the first of her three shows at the Shaw Theatre. She later announces she’s not going to dance – but that was obvious: she’s wearing four-inch heels and no-one can dance in four-inch heels. But that doesn’t stop her singing – song after song, including "Put On A Happy Face," "I’ve Got A Lot Of Living To Do," "Big Spender" and many more.

It’s 50 years since she played Anita in the first night of West Side Story but those years seem to slip away as she segues into the opening bars of "America."

She has performed in the A-list of  B’way musicals: Bye Bye Birdie, the original production of Chicago, The Rink, Kiss Of The Spiderwoman & the film version of Sweet Charity. And she’ll be opening in Kander & Ebb’s musical of Durrenmatt’s The Visit in May, that she first played seven years ago. Not bad for a 75-year-old! Or, as she put it: “I’ve been living the life of a 35-year-old woman for the past few years . . .”

It’s regrettable that she’s only doing three performances: Friday night’s full house gave her a standing ovation. And despite a car accident 20 years ago when she suffered a dozen fractures in her leg, she still does remarkable things with her hips. If she comes this way again, don’t miss. Producer Brian Daniels has pulled another plum out of the tree of life but he needs to get more accuracy into his announcements: he told the audience that she would do a 90-minute show but it turned out to be 80-minutes. You owe us 10 minutes, Brian.

Jack Jaffe
Cabaret Scenes
February 8, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org