Imagine a “Funny Girl” in which Nicky Arnstein is Fanny Brice’s talented, hard-working manager-collaborator. That plot would pretty much sum up the love story and rise to fame of Emilio and Gloria Estefan in their new jukebox musical, “On Your Feet!,” which opened Thursday at the Marquis Theatre.
Or, imagine the musical “Beautiful” if Carole King’s first husband, the late Gerry Goffin, had not been seriously bipolar. Instead of a bad husband, what “On Your Feet!” gives us is a bad bus wreck about half-way through act two. The difference between a husband and a bus wreck is that the one usually lasts much longer, making for many more twists in the plot.