Celia Cruz may live on in the hearts of fans and music lovers, forever beloved for her spirit, her voice, and as a symbol of the vitality and possibilities of Cuban exile.

But there are downsides to making an artist into an icon. Case in point is Celia: The Life and Music of Celia Cruz, the bio-musical that played Miami to much fanfare last summer and that has returned to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. The show may do well -- there seems to be an endless appetite for Cruz in Miami. But Celia doesn't shed any light or bring any life to the story of Cruz the artist, the woman or the symbol. All it does is add another thick coat of shellac to the icon.

On view in Wednesday night's performance were a new cast (except for Anissa Gathers, who returns as the singing Cruz), new choreography, the work of a new director and a few minor changes. But the changes are mostly for the worse, and the show, no longer riding the excitement that surrounded its initial New York run and then its Miami debut, feels stiffer and clunkier, like it's going through the motions to paint the picture the audience is presumed to want. Even Gathers, who still looks and sounds uncannily like the beloved singer, has lost much of the spark that made her so exciting when we first heard her last year.

The two lead actors, Pedro Telemaco as Pedro Knight, Cruz's husband, and Seidy Carrera, who plays Cruz in the narrative speaking scenes, are cringe-inducingly bad. Salsa singer Kevin Ceballo plays the nurse who looks after the aged Knight. He alternates between telling the story of Cruz's life and acting in the short scenes, interspersed with Gathers singing Cruz's songs, that make up the show.

That awkward narrative structure is made worse by the actors. Bad enough that Carmen Rivera and Candido Tirado's script has the characters tell us about their emotions and their story, instead of showing us or bringing the drama to life onstage.

Telemaco tells us, for instance, that the couple had hard times when gigs dried up and Cruz couldn't get pregnant. But instead of showing us their stress and pain, they play a scene in which Cruz is called to sing with the Fania All-Stars.

Telemaco is flat and repetitive, frequently bursting into unconvincing tears. Carrera is stilted and simpering as a woman who was irrepressibly vibrant. They make lines like ''don't let anyone take your dreams away from you'' even more painful.

New director Daniel Garcia Chavez speeds up the pace, which makes the scene-song-scene-song format feel more mechanical.

Ceballo is animated (and terrific singing a couple of duets with Gathers) but he's a one-note actor. Six hard-working male and female dancer/actor/singers play small roles and expertly perform Leo Chavez's flashy, standard-issue Latin show choreography. (Livan Dominguez's electrifying dancing stands out).

Musical director Isidro Infante, who worked with the real Cruz, keeps a strong sextet of musicians clicking along.

But Gathers, whose powerful voice and explosive natural energy made her the soul of the show last year, seems worn down by repetition.

She still packed a punch on songs like Quimbara and Bemba Colorá, but on others, she, too, just seemed to be going through the motions of representing Cruz's music.

Which is something Cruz herself would never, ever have done.

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