What We Carry, What We Choose

(Photo/Omara/New York Theatre Guide)

By Isabel Hou

From the very first note to the final curtain, Buena Vista Social Club moved with striking cohesion. The set lighting washed the stage in hues of a Havana sunset, then sank into the somber dawn of revolution. Time shifted fluidly—past and present interlaced in ways that mirrored the play’s bittersweet nostalgia. Dancers soared in rhythmic motion, their vibrant, candy-colored dresses swishing in perfect tandem. Every element clicked into place. Each musician had a purpose. Every dancer a role. Each line held meaning. “I wasn’t aware this was an audition,” Omara says, first as an older woman being courted to join a young man’s band, and again, as her younger self, torn over leaving the Social Club behind for a solo career. The line lands with a different meaning each time.

The musical is built around the idea that nothing is wasted. The background is as important as the foreground. Dancers take center stage nearly as often as the leads; every musician has their moment in the spotlight. Even the flute player, initially dismissed by Omara, delivers a show-stopping solo during “Candela.” On the play’s website, Hery Paz, the flute player, describes “Candela” as “part of [his] DNA.” Buena Vista Social Club goes out of its way to make one thing clear: there’s brilliance in the margins, and if we’re paying attention, we’ll see it. That ethos—of recognition, of shared spotlight, of equal stage time—feels deeply human, reminding us that people long not just to be seen but to be valued.

One alluring dream binds Omara and Ibrahim, the two protagonists of the play: talent should shine, regardless of skin color, class, or station. Ibrahim, a Black busboy, dreams of becoming a star like Omara, whose mixed heritage and socioeconomic status secure her a coveted offer from Capitol Records to leave Havana and perform in New York with her sister.  But Omara is steadfast in her focus on making music for her people. She ignores her sister’s desperate efforts to get them both to America amid political upheaval, then naively signs a solo contract in Cuba, not realizing her producer has no interest in signing the rest of the band. At one point, she doesn’t even remember Ibrahim singing backup for her. She never thinks to look behind.

Regret is a strong current in Buena Vista Social Club, pulling Omara through memory and music. When she ultimately declines the Capitol Records offer, she permanently fractures her relationship with her sister, who still gets on the plane to New York. They never speak again. Only after Omara confronts her deepest regrets when she’s older—“apologies mean nothing to the dead,” her sister tells her from beyond the grave—can she begin to find beauty and belonging in the music again.

Omara makes impossible choices in a world shaped by violence and upheaval. Her regrets begin with her sister, but they spiral outward. The Cuban Revolution is the stage, but the play’s emotional core resonates far beyond Havana. It reminds us that history’s turbulence is never just a backdrop.

Here’s what I know:

Omara made the best decisions she could and ended up unhappy. Her sister did the same. Every day, we’re all faced with hard choices, and eventually we live with the consequences. Like Omara, we must find a way to make peace with our choices. In the end, we choose happiness, or else risk silence. Life without music.  Sometimes it feels easier to turn away, to remain neutral, detached, ambivalent. But even that is a choice. And eventually, it demands reconciliation too.

Nothing is wasted, not even regret. It’s proof of what mattered to us once, and a guide toward what might still matter now. That’s what Buena Vista Social Club reminds us. That the things we carry, the things we remember, the things that haunt us— they have weight because they were once full of meaning. And maybe still are.