Review Roundup: FOREVER TANGO with Karina Smirnoff and Maksim Chmerkovskiy Opens on Broadway

DANCING WITH THE STARS duo Karina Smirnoff and Maksim Chmerkovskiy star in Broadway's FOREVER TANGO, opening tonight, July 14, at the Walter Kerr Theatre (219 W 48th Street). Special guest vocalist and five-time Grammy Award-winner, Gilberto Santa Rosa, will appear through July 28, as previously announced. Forever Tango, the internationally acclaimed entertainment phenomenon began preview performances last week, and is slated to run through Sunday, August 11.

Created and directed by Luis Bravo, Forever Tango has touched the souls of millions worldwide since its inception in San Francisco in 1994, where it thrilled audiences for nearly two years. Called "A must-see" by the New York Times, Forever Tango originally opened on Broadway in 1997 where it played the Walter Kerr and Marquis Theatres for fourteen months and earned multiple Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations. Celebrated by critics and audiences alike, the international sensation returned to Broadway's Shubert Theater for a limited four month engagement in 2004.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Alastair Macaulay, New York Times: This is a foolish production. Belittling its own music, it turns tango into a mere formula, an excuse. Its real heart is in surface displays of costume, makeup, coiffure and sexuality as melodrama. Only the musicians look sincere.

Tanner Stransky, Entertainment Weekly: Tango is light but fun, and it moves along at a spicy clip. If you love Latin dance - or hell, if you just love a good time - you won't regret a night at the show, which impresario Luis Bravo has been mounting in various incarnations for more than two decades.

Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: It's a bare-bones show. No sets, just a stage full of 11 musicians, with Grammy-winning Latin crooner Gilberto Santa Rosa as a guest vocalist through July 28. On the cello is Luis Bravo, the show's creator and director, who's already brought this show to Broadway in 1997 and 2004. When he called it "Forever," he meant it.

Michael Dale, BWW: More of a supper club floor show than the usual theatre fare, the elegantly-mannered onstage eleven piece orchestra, led by Víctor Lavallén, features four gentlemen playing the bandoneón, the traditional concertina-type instrument. In fact, the show's primary dance team, Victoria Galoto and Juan Paulo Horvath, both make their entrances out of an oversized replica of the instrument.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, NY Post: There's a reason we have a revue like "Forever Tango" and not "Everlasting Jitterbug" or "Always Rumba." Since its beginnings in lower-class Argentine neighborhoods, tango has enjoyed global success, becoming an international code word for both torrid passion and popular routines on "Dancing With the Stars." Maybe it's that combination of stylized aggression, pent-up sexuality and aloof intensity that draws fans: A hard-to-get lover can be more rewarding than an easy conquest, and tango doesn't try to charm.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter: this Broadway summer filler's main challenge is to inject variation into an entertainment built entirely around a single sultry dance tradition, defined by its heightened sense of melodramatic sizzle. But creator-director Luis Bravo's worldwide hit addresses the fatigue issue by steadily cranking up the degree of difficulty in the routines as the marathon progresses....Smirnoff and Chmerkovskiy are about as authentically Argentinean as Tango & Cash, but who cares? The crowd is mad for them, and it's easy to see why. They're tall, sinuous and sexy, delivering polished showmanship with effortless charisma. The four routines that feature the duo are among the highlights

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: The tango is a dance that relies heavily on the physical and sensual rapport and tension between partners. The assorted couples in the regular cast - many of whom have appeared in previous stagings of Tango, which creator/director Luis Bravo conceived in the early '90s - lock into each other with an intensity that might seem almost satirical to the uninitiated...Smirnoff and Chmerkovskiy, in contrast, appear much more focused on seducing the audience...Their dancing may be technically impressive, but like the submedium that made them famous, it lacks wit, restraint and nuance.

Linda Winer, Newsday: The guest headliners at "Forever Tango" through Aug. 11 are Karina Smirnoff and Maksim Chmerkovskiy, those superstar virtuoso-celebs from "Dancing With the Stars" by way of Ukraine. And their audience-pleasing, hyper-theatrical, show-off numbers are lots of fun -- especially if you appreciate the allure of unbridled ego...But the real stars of Luis Bravo's "Forever Tango" -- the ones keeping the forever in the tango -- must certainly be the 16 dancers and the 11-piece orchestra now serving as more than mere summer filler on Broadway.

Matt Windman, am New York: Maybe it's called 'Forever Tango' because, unless you don't mind watching tango routine after tango routine after tango routine for two-plus hours without any kind of narrative, it seems to last forever...The athletic, chic-looking dancers move elegantly and have sex appeal to spare. The accordion-heavy band is also quite elegant. But devoid of plot, character or variation, their leg-locking and thrusting routines get old after 10 minutes.

Robert Feldberg, NorthJersey.com: Other tango revues have provided context for the dances, presenting the rich history of Argentina's tango culture, which originated in the 1890s in disreputable districts of Buenos Aires, as well as charting the evolution of its style over the years, as it became one of the world's most popular dances. "Forever Tango," however, tries to get by with the bare minimum, assuming the word "tango" is enough to entrance an audience. It isn't.

Photo by: Walter McBride

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