With Living Out playwright Lisa Loomer found a way to use sharp-edged comedy to give cover to a politically tinged, ultimately tragic tale about child-rearing. As produced by GALA Hispanic Theater, Living Out is chock-full of Sophie’s choices for families deeply affected by their unequal economic and legal relationships.

In the play, written in 2003, Loomer directly asks these types of questions: what is the cost of sacrificing your own child’s well-being to take care of another family’s child? When a mother is overwhelmed who will pay the price? She presents her perspective in the collision of very asymmetrical power relationships between an undocumented Salvadoran mother hired to be the nanny by an up-and-coming Anglo entertainment lawyer and new mother. The two working mothers, both married with working husbands, make any number of uneasy choices to provide better lives for their children.

Playwright Loomer (b. 1956) has received awards for her many works, including the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, and the American Critics Association Award. She has been nominated twice for a Pulitzer Prize and has also received the Imagen Award for positive portrayals of Latinos in media. She was the screen writer for the 1999 movie “Girl, Interrupted.”

Living Out is directed by Abel López, GALA’s Associate Producing Director. “I was drawn to Living Out,” stated López, “because it addresses an issue that affects working women of all races, class, and economic status in our community – entrusting the primary care of their children to someone else.” As a note, the show is in English with Spanish surtitles projected.

For your reviewer, what is striking about Living Out is that it is not full of Washington-based talking points and clichés. It is a street-level view. There are few saints as the characters try to make life the best they can under the circumstances they are in. Loomer does not bludgeon with sharply defined Fox vs. MSNBC points of view, but gives the audience plenty of room to take in the presentation and think for themselves.

The play explores a myriad of issues about the differences of race, class and undocumented status in America. Through the play we witness struggles of mothers and families trying to make it in a pressurized world. With a great big delightful heart, the play also explores the misconceptions between Anglos and Latinos from each of their perspectives. This includes some outrageously diabolical, funny dialogue that leaves no group untouched. Everyone is properly roasted.

Megan Behm plays the Anglo, Nancy. Ana is played by Belen Oyola-Rebaza. The difference in power is made quite visual in the casting of these two actors. Behen towers over Oyola-Rehbaza. As the play progresses, there comes a time when Nancy must deal with an unexpected work situation. She pressures Ana into a decision that she will come to regret.

In her character, Behm projects a progressive sensibility and generosity in her interactions with Ana. Yet, when Ana lets her employer know that she had trained to be a dentist in her native El Salvador, there is a moment of silence as Nancy tries to process the information.

Oyola-Rebaza projects living under constant siege by outside forces; a life beholden to others. When Nancy seems to try to befriend and not just employ Ana, Oyola-Rebaza gives off a nuanced, leery reaction to the offer of friendship.

The two husbands in Living Out while not central, do matter. Each is given a back-story to flesh out the characters. Nancy’s husband is Kyle McGruther, a man who hates a Volvo and unsure of what is wife is going through but supports her. Ana’s husband is Peter Pereyra, a man who wants better for his family, but life has dealt him a bad hand as he struggles to find steady employment at a decent wage.

There is a top-flight ensemble of Anglo mothers and Latina child-care givers. They give effervescent life. They are like back-up singers who provide the rhythm and visual interest standing a few feet behind the lead. Each has a clearly drawn personality. There is Lisa Hodsoll as Wallace, the selfish woman of means who treats non-Anglo’s with disdain. There is Amal Sasde as Linda, the unsure of herself Anglo Mom with a hint of decency. Stefanie Garcia is Sandra, the Latina with a plan to become a citizen and kiss-off her past. Then there is Lorena Sabogal as Zoila. She brought the house down with her delivery and spot-on comic, cynical outlook. Louis CK should pay a visit to see her. She is one tough cookie. She is like a Shakespeare-drawn comic clown.

The set give off detailed visual clues to the various power relationships. There are two small open “houses” in plain sight. They look similar until one peers closer. One has a modern, dropped multi-bulb lighting fixture and a contemporary painting of an almost un-seen Star of David. The other house has a single, un-shaded incandescent bulb on the ceiling with a large cross on the wall. Between the two houses is a sitting area which becomes everything from a living room to benches at a park.

Living Out has plenty of laughter to cover the deep issues it explores with compassion. In this production, even with the best of hearts, the woman and family with the most economic and other power “wins;” leaving the other Salvadoran family left to deal with and mourn their losses.

And, the title? Living Out comes a question asked of Ana and the other nannies. Do you want to live-in and be in the home 24/7 or live at your home and travel each day to care for another’s child.

Living Out is what the GALA marketing material called it. “A comedy with serious relevance to our contemporary society.” It is well worth a visit.

Note: Off-street parking is available at the nearby Giant parking garage on Park Road, NW.

Photo Gallery

Kyle McGruther and Belen Oyola-Rebaza	Belen Oyola-Rebaza and Lorena Sabogal
Belen Oyola-Rebaza and Peter Pereyra	Belen Oyola-Rebaza, Stefanie Garcia, and Lorena Sabogal

Photos by Lonnie Tague

Cast

• Ana: Belén Oyola-Rebaza
• Nancy: Megan Behm
• Bobby: Peter Pereyra
• Sandra: Stefanie García
• Wallace: Lisa Hodsoll
• Richard: Kyle McGruther
• Linda: Amal Saad
• Zoila: Lorena Sabogal

Artistic and Design Team

• Director: Abel Lopez
• Set design : Girogos Tsappas
• Lighting design : Cory Frank Ryan
• Sound Design : Brendon Vierra
• Properties: Pam Weiner.
• Stage Manager: Lena Salins
• Production Manager : Anna Bate
• Producer: Hugo Medrano
• Spanish Translation : Gustavo Ott
• Assistant Technical Director: Linda Di Bernardo
• Master Electrician: Jenny Hall
• Light Board Operator: Lena Salins
• Sound Board Operator: Artemis Lopez
• Surtitles Programmer and Surtitles Operator: Laura Ettabbakh
• Surtitles Operator: Esther Gentile

Disclaimer: GALA Hispanic Theatre provided a complimentary media ticket to ShowBizRadio for this review.

La señorita de Tacna is about a playwright struggling to write a play. Neither the play nor the playwright is notably successful.

In contrast, Mario Vargas Llosa, the author of La señorita de Tacna, is hugely successful. He has written a couple dozen spectacular novels, many of them international best sellers. He won the 2010 Nobel Prize for literature. In 2011, the Spanish government actually invested him with nobility, naming him El Marqués de Vargas Llosa I.

As a playwright, Vargas Llosa is a dabbler. Of his nine dramatic works, La señorita is the best known.

What makes the play interesting is its examination of a writer’s creative process. The protagonist, Belisario, sits off on the left side of the stage. He taps at a typewriter. Exasperated, he yanks out page after page, balls them up and throws them away. He explains that his characters are unruly. They head off unbidden on dramatic detours. He himself is an unruly character. He is supposedly trying to write something about fragments of memory from his childhood, embellishing known facts and filling in gaps with improvised fictions.

He berates himself for getting off track. He wants something romantic, a love story. He comes up with a disjointed unhappy family tale. Sexual hysteria and intimations of incest, sadism and masochism compete with bickering about money. A pervading irritant is the erratic title character.

The current GALA Hispanic Theatre production of La señorita gives the play an appropriately vague and tentative look. Director José Carrasquillo and his designers create a nowhere-in-particular look. Setting (Giorgos Tsappas), costumes (Ivania Stack), sound (Brendan Vierra) and lighting (Cory Ryan Frank) hint at times and places ranging from late 19th Century small towns to mid 20th Century cities. Tacna is a small town on the Chile/Peru border. Belisario and his distressed typing are located in Lima.

Carrasquillo’s eight actors struggle along in ways that recall Luigi Pirandello’s play Six Characters in Search of an Author. Carlos Castillo plays Vargas Llosa’s exasperated playwright. Luz Nicolás is the “Señorita,” switching back and forth between innocent ingenue and bitter old woman. Also bouncing around back and forth in place and time are Andrea Aranguren as both a femme fatale and a long-suffering mother, Victor Maldonado as a dashing Chilean officer, Marian Licha as a fading grande dame, Hugo Medrano as a fading patriarch and Tim Pabon and Oscar Ceville, sometimes as eager youths and sometimes as exemplars of disillusioned middle-age.

Along the way, Vargas Llosa tosses in red herrings: did a black man with a white mask really sneak into a high society ball? Did the Señorita really dance with him only to discover, with unspeakable horror, that he was black? Did outraged gentlemen really beat the intruder with walking sticks? Was the señorita — a proud Peruvian — really engaged to be married to the dashing Chilean invader? Was the marriage aborted at the last minute when the bride-to-be discovered that the groom-to-be was lustful? Was he was having an affair with an equally lustful married woman? Did grandpa really have an affair with an Indian woman? Oh, the horror! Was she, like the intruding black man, severely beaten? What’s with all the sex-and-violence-and-racism mishmash?

As the story proceeds, it’s as if we were reading a bewildering and barely legible draft, full of cross outs and erasures and rewrites.

Yet, in his novels, Vargas Llosa is the master of lucid storytelling. On historical matters, his research is phenomenal. “The War at the End of the World”, his epic about a 19th Century apocalyptic religious movement in Brazil, is an exquisite mosaic of fact and fiction, as is “The Feast of the Goat,” his retelling of the rise and fall of the 20th Century Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo. Over and over again, Vargas Llosa has proven to be a virtuoso of relevance and plausibility when it comes to imaginative writing.

When he wants to, Vargas Llosa adheres scrupulously to the literary imperative of fostering a willing suspension of disbelief. In La señorita de Tacna, he seems to be engaging in a willful cultivation of disbelief.

Photo Gallery

Carlos Castillo (Belisario) and Luz Nicolas (Mamae)	Victor Maldonado (Joaquin) and Luz Nicolas (Mamae)

Photos by Lonnie Tague

Cast

• Mamae: Luz Nicolas
• Belisario: Carlos Castillo
• Amelia/Carlota: Andrea Aranguren
• Joaquin: Victor Maldonado
• Abuela Carmen: Marian Licha
• Abuela Pedro: Hugo Medrano
• Agustin: Tim Pabon
• Cesar: Oscar Ceville

Production Staff

• Producing Artistic Director: Hugo Medrano
• Associate Producing Director: Abel Lopez
• Director: Jose Carrasquillo
• Scenic Design: Giorgos Tsappas
• Lighting Design: Cory Ryan Frank
• Costume Design: Ivania Stack
• Sound Design: Brendon Vierra
• Properties Design: Marie Schneggenburger
• Stage Manager: Cecilia Cackley
• Technical Director: Andres Luque
• Production Manager: Anna E. Bate
• Producer: Abel Lopez
• House Managers: David Kriesberg, Alida Yath
• Costume Design Assistants: Chelsey Schuller, Robert Croghan
• Wardrobe/Backstage Manager: Jenny Cisneros
• Assistant Technical Director: Linda Di Bernardo
• Master Electrician: Aaron Haag
• Electricians: Alison Burris, Christian Campbell, Chris Elwell, Joshua Midgett, Gabriel Rodriguez, John Rubin, Eliza Walker
• Master Carpenter: Ryan Lanham
• Carpenters: Christian Campbell, Steven Romero, Christian Sanchez
• Scenic Charge: Marisa “Za” Johns
• Scenic Painters: Ashley Bailey, Danielle DeFrancesco, Matt Reckeweg
• Fight Choreographer: Mona Lisa Arias
• Light Board Operator: Cecilia Cackley
• Sound Board Operator: Artemis Lopez
• Surtitles Programmer: Laura Smith
• Surtitles operator: Esther Gentile, Laura Smith
• Photographer: Lonnie Tague
• Graphic Design: Watermark Design
• Playbill: Christopher Shell

Disclaimer: GALA Hispanic Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

]]> /2014/02/review-gala-the-young-lady-from-tacna/feed/ 1 /2012/09/review-gala-in-spite-of-love/ Tue, 18 Sep 2012 01:12:25 +0000 http://washingtondc.showbizradio.com/?p=8626 El desdén con el desdén (In Spite of Love) by Augustín Moreto
GALA Hispanic Theatre
Tivoli Theatre, Washington DC
Through October 7th
2:00 with one intermission
Performed in Spanish with English surtitles
$20-$40
Reviewed September 16th, 2012

While England had its Shakespeare, Spain had its Siglo de Oro — its “golden century.” Dozens of Spanish playwrights were writing thousands of plays — literally! if the records are to believed. Most of those plays have been lost and most of the playwrights have been forgotten. But one of the survivors is Agustín Moreto (1618-1669). Like his almost contemporary Shakespeare, Moreto took old stories, pruned the scraggly plots, enhanced them with dialogue written in poetry and became a box office hero. One of Moreto’s most popular works, and one that has been revived repeatedly over the years, is El desdén con el desdén (In Spite of Love).

The play is a close cousin of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost and Much Ado about Nothing. You know the familiar comic conundrum. Even now it is popular with TV sitcom writers: The hero claims to believe that love and marriage are a curse. The heroine says that she thinks that love and marriage are a trap. And then ….

A revival of El desdén con el desdén is now playing at the GALA Hispanic Theatre. Director Hugo Medrano’s production is mostly conservative/traditional. His take on 17th Century Spanish aristocrats is Renaissance flashy. Costume designer Alicia Tessari Neiman’s outfits are extravaganzas of brightly colored and patterned satin, lace, brocade and velvet. Hats are gardens of feathers. The finery code applies to both men and women.

But conservatism and tradition don’t absolutely rule Medrano’s show. The first scene includes a male strip tease. The protagonist, a count played by Ignacio García-Bustelo, unburdens himself about his tricky love life. At the same time he unburdens himself of all his clothing and then climbs into a bathtub. His valet, played by Antonio Vargas, listens and fusses and manages to extend a towel in such a way that there is no actual full frontal (or full rear) nudity.

As far as we know, nude scenes were not an element in 17th Century Spanish stage productions. And come to think of it, bathing at that time, was not an important part of Spanish life. It was regarded as unhealthy — as it was in England and all over Europe 400 years ago.

Bathing even smacked of heresy. Proving the point was the fact Moors (Muslims) bathed once — sometimes even twice! — a day.

Another of Medrano’s intriguing innovations comes in the second act: Four well-bred ladies arrange themselves fetchingly in a garden to attract the attention of the recalcitrant bachelor count. They are clothed in a negligée (for the female protagonist Diana, a Catalan princess played by Natalia Miranda-Guzmán) or frilly PJs (for Diana’s attendants). There is plenty of decolletage all around. The scene is quite funny. The ladies sing beautifully, but with increasing volume. Eventual fortissimo warbling not withstanding, the count manages to ignore them.

The settings are a series of simplified baroque interiors and exteriors. Set designer Elizabeth Jenkins McFadden has fashioned scenery so that changes are quick, sometimes accompanied by action at the edge of the stage or by musical interludes.

In charge of music is Mariano Vales. He has selected lively Spanish Renaissance songs and dances (choreography by Lourdes Elias). Behzad Habibzai accompanies on guitar. An array of cast members play castanets, recorder, maracas and tambourine.

Moreto’s characters are a bit thin, a bit stereotypical, a bit caricaturish. And his dialogue can be stilted, archaic and garrulous at times. The GALA cast, however, provides enthusiasm and nuances. García-Bustelo in the leading role does indeed convey the rigors of pretending to be indifferent while actually feeling enthralled. Similarly, Miranda-Guzmán as the leading lady, conveys the rigors of feigned disdain and genuine infatuation. Vargas, as the valet, provides refreshing irreverence that contrasts with the aristocrats high falutin poetry and sentiments.

The verse is sometimes intricate and hard to understand. Making things a little more difficult is the fact that García-Bustelo is from Spain and uses the Castilian lisp, while the rest of the cast use Latin American diction.

For those whose Spanish is shaky or non-existent, translations of the dialogue into English are projected above the stage.

Director’s Notes

While mostly overlooked during the 20th century, Agustin Moreto was recognized by 19th century critics and scholars as one of the best playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age. They saw in his work the values o fthe French theater of the era: unity of time and action, and the clarity of argument and psychological nuances of the characters. Considered a forerunner of the French playwright Marivaux, Moreto’s exquisite and refined language responds to the notion of “marivauge:” the visualization and psychological analysis of the feelings of comedy of love.

I was first drawn to the play by the delightful arguments of the two protagonists, their intellectual battles over the nature of love, and the seductive manner by which they enticed each other to fall in love. How similar are these troubles of love to those that touch the modern heart! I was also drawn to the humor and the comic antics of Polilla, the clever servant, who with unusual culinary metaphors reminds us of the physical nature of love and the sensual passion of the flesh. All this occurs against the backdrop of the Carnival, which permeates the atmosphere with a kind of discreet, almost subtle eroticism.

I hope this introduction to a “new” dramatist, drawn from an inexhaustible source of talent that is the Spanish Golden Age, will entertain you.

Hugo Medrano
September 13, 2012

Photo Gallery

Natalia Miranda-Guzm√°n	Carlos Castillo, Natalia Miranda-Guzm√°n

Photos by Lonnie Tague

Cast

• Carlos, Conde de Urgel: Ignacio Garcia-Bustelo
• Polilla: Antonia Vargas
• El Conde de Barcelone: Manolo Santalla
• El Principe de Bearne: Carlos Castillo
• Don Gaston, Conde de Fox: Ricardo Navas
• Princesa Diana: Natalia Miranda-Guzman
• Cintia: Lorena Sabogal
• Laura: Belen Oyola-Rebaza
• Fenisa: Cecilia De Feo
• Musico: Behzad Habibzai

Production Staff

• Director: Hugo Medrano
• Scenic Design: Elizabeth Jenkins McFadden
• Lighting Design: Joseph Walls
• Costume Design: Alicia Tessari Neiman
• Sound design: Brendon Vierra
• Properties Design: Tessa Grippaudo
• Musical Selection and Arrangements: Mariano Vales
• Choreographer: Lourdes Elias
• Stage Manager: Cecilia Cackley
• Technical Director: Andres Luque
• Production Manager: Anna E. Bate
• Producer: Abel Lopez
• House Manager: David Kriesberg
• Backstage Manager: Jenny Cisneros
• Assistant Technical Director: Ashley Washinski, Linda di Bernardo
• Run Crew, Wardrobe: Russell Matthews, Kelly Rice
• Master Electrician: Jeny Hall
• Electricians: Michael Brown, Colin Diek, Jeffrey Porter, Will Voorhies
• Master Carpenter: Linda di Bernardo
• Carpenters: Mitchell Grant, Ariel Klein, Craig Lawrence, Owen Nichols
• Scenic Charge: Andrew Mannion
• Scenic Painters: Linda di Bernardo, Carolyn Hampton, Jennifer Kirkpatrick, Ariel Klein, Ashley Washinski
• Light Board operator: Cecilia Cackley
• Sound Board Operator: Crescent Haynes
• Surtitles Programmer: Laura Smith
• Surtitles Operator: Esther Gentile
• Photographers: Lonnie Tague, Paulo Andres Montenegro, Jose Arteaga
• Graphic Design: Watermark Design
• Playbill: Christopher Shell

Disclaimer: GALA Hispanic Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

]]> /2012/06/review-gala-puerto-rico-fua/ Tue, 12 Jun 2012 03:24:53 +0000 http://washingtondc.showbizradio.net/?p=8174 Puerto Rico !Fua! is an engaging musical review that has been playing in one place or another for the past 35 years.]]> Puerto Rico ¡Fuá! by Carlos Ferrari
GALA Hispanic Theatre
Tivoli Theatre, Washington DC
Through July 1st
2 hours with intermission
$20-$40
Reviewed June 10th, 2012

Style: Goofy, raucous and irreverent. Content: Poignant, troubling and even tragic at times. Result: Puerto Rico !Fua!, an engaging musical review that has been playing in one place or another for the past 35 years. It’s here in DC now at the GALA Hispanic Theatre.

First off — what’s with ¡Fuá! ? Like the show itself, that little exclamation characteristic of Puerto Rican Spanish can be either raucous and goofy or troubling and poignant. Usually “fuá” is an oral emoticon on the order of wow! or whoa! or hey! But at times, as in the mostly serious final scene in Puerto Rico ¡Fuá!, it is an untranslatable exhortation to get busy, to take heart, to push hard, to transcend fear and cynicism and to get gutsy and real.

(I’m telling you all this with two bases of authority: 1. Years ago I lived and worked in Puerto Rico. 2. Before the GALA show started I was chatting with a guy, a Nuyorican who was born in the Bronx but who regularly visits relatives in Puerto Rico. I asked him about “fuá.” For about five minutes he explored for me the word’s various connotations and contexts. You don’t have to know Spanish, or even Spanglish, by the way, to enjoy Puerto Rico ¡Fuá!. GALA provides translations into English of the dialog and lyrics on projection screens above the stage.)

Eight peppy, talented and versatile actors — five men and three women — perform dozens of vignette roles. The arc of the show covers, chronologically, pre-Spanish conquest pre-history to the present. A five-member combo (Banda sin Miedo, The Fearless Band) provides spirited musical backup. Styles range from salsa and bolero to tango and mambo.

The show’s grotesque/farcical sequence of 32 scenes starts with the native Taino people contending with cannibals from neighboring islands. Then come the Spanish soldiers, who pretty much exterminate the Tainos what with the Spaniards frenzy for gold, not to mention their deadly diseases. Then come the priests, backed by the ghastly, grisly Inquisition — forswear your native religion or experience torture and death. Both Tainos and then the Africans who eventually took their places as slaves, contend with the incomprehensible Spanish language and the even more incomprehensible Roman Catholic theology: There is only one God, get that!? But he’s really three entities — father, son and holy ghost. Puzzling? Shut up and remember it. Or die. The choice is yours.

When the Puerto Rican population had more or less blended into a stable community by the beginning of the 19th Century, along came revolutions against Spanish misrule — stretching from Chile and Argentina to Mexico. But not to Puerto Rico. Bummer. About 100 years later along came the Spanish-American War. Cuba got its independence. Puerto Rico did not. Bummer. Comically troubling bewilderments evolve into the peculiar form of contemporary colonialism that gives Puerto Ricans US citizenship but not the right to vote in US elections. Similar to the Spaniards’ brain-spraining Catholic catechism is the American furor about cramming the English language into Spanish-speaking children.

Some of this material is handled by two clowns doing giddy patter and timeless slapstick — even when the clowns’ job is to get rid of the bodies of drafted Puerto Rican soldiers killed in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Downright heart-stopping is a folklore ritual performed by starving small farmers. Performers wearing ingenious three-dimensional cartoon horses held up by suspenders weave around and the stage and sing about their sorry lot. The ritual is an impoverished imitation of wealthy Spaniards parading about on high-stepping “paso fino” horses. Eventually the dancers are too weak from hunger to continue, and they are dragged off stage by compassionate comrades.

Strange but affecting is a scene with two men doing an exquisitely choreographed tango. That is juxtaposed to a dark comedy cartoon scene in which a hyper Uncle Sam marries and then dances with an exhausted female embodiment of Puerto Rico.

GALA director/designer Luis Caballero keeps his performers go-go-going, whether the material is ghastly or giddy or both. He provides settings and costumes that evoke a battered traveling circus/carnival. The effect of Caballero and playwright Carlos Ferrari’s every-which-way amalgam is both entertaining and troubling.

Photo Gallery

Photos by Nick Eckert.

Cast

• Ricardo Puente
• Joel Perez
• Antonio Vargas
• Rita Ortiz
• Jeffrey Hernandez
• Anamer Castrello
• Jose Manuel Ozuna-Baez
• Isabel Arraiza

Musicians

• Didier Prossaid: Keyboard, Guitar
• Christian Gonzales: Electric Bass
• Antonio Orta: Saxophone, Flute
• Alex Norris: Trumpet
• Alfredo Mojica: Drums, Percussion

Designers

• Director: Luis Caballero
• Directing Collaborator: Hugo Medrano
• Musical Director: Didier Prossaird
• Scenic Design: Luciana Stecconi
• Lighting Design: Andrew F. Griffin
• Costume and Properties Design: Alicia Tessari Neiman
• Sound Design: Brendon Vierra
• Choreographer: Jose Manuel Ozuna-Baez
• Choreography Collaborator: Antonio Vargas
• Vocal Coach: Diana Saez
• Stage Manager: Cody Whitfield
• Technical Director: Andres Luque
• Producer: Abel Lopez

Disclaimer: GALA Hispanic Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

]]> /2011/09/review-gala-ay-carmela/ Mon, 19 Sep 2011 04:26:04 +0000 http://www.showbizradio.net/?p=7161 ¡Ay, Carmela! is challenging.]]> Ay, Carmela! by José Sanchis Sinisterra
GALA Hispanic Theatre
GALA Theatre-Tivoli, Washington DC
Through October 9th
2:20 with one intermission
$10-$38
Reviewed September 16th, 2011

Sometimes the heroic poignancy is electrifying. Sometimes the abject groveling is embarrassing. But mostly ¡Ay, Carmela! is challenging. There are certain stories that, for me, raise the troubling question, “What would I do?” Carmela is definitely one of those stories. It takes place in Spain, late 1930s, just as Fascist forces are laying waste to the last pockets of Republican resistance. The Civil War is coming to an end. Prisoners are being executed en masse. Hapless civilians with leftist (Republican) sympathies are suddenly finding themselves in the grip of ruthless enemies.

Two of these hapless civilians are Carmela and Paulino, a down but not quite out song-and-dance-and-comedy duo. As war and economic depression make life harder and harder, Carmela and Paulino lose their grip on musical comedy and vaudeville gigs. They survive by entertaining the troops. First the Republican forces. Then, as the front lines keep closing in on Madrid and Barcelona, Carmela and Paulino are obliged to perform for Fascist forces, both Spanish and Italian.

Actually the audience is even more cosmopolitan than that. Spanish Fascist were supported by German and Italian co-religionaries who, according to historians, were using the Spanish Civil War as a “rehearsal for World War II.” Planes, tanks, ships, artillery and rifles received their shake-down field trials on the battlefields of Spain. As for the Republicans, they benefitted from the support of raggedy “International Brigades” made up of leftist sympathizers from all over Europe, North and South America and even Asia and Australia.

Part of the audience for Carmela and Paulino’s command performance is made up of International Brigade prisoners who are about to be executed. In a sadistic gesture, the Italian lieutenant who is organizing the entertainment has decided that the presence of chained condemned men will add a certain piquancy (or something) to the proceedings.

I won’t say much about how this unique amalgam of farce and tragedy plays out. The style is what might be called “magic realism.” One of the principle characters is a ghost with news from the hereafter. Playwright José Sanchis Sinisterra’s graceful disregard for familiar realities may be one reason why Carmela is only now receiving its US première — at GALA Theatre — 54 years after its world première in Zaragoza. Non-ordinary reality has never been popular on American stages. And leftist politics, even playful and pathetic leftist politics, has never gone over very well here with mass audiences here.

Carmela has been widely translated. It has been performed all over Europe and Latin America. In 1990 it was made into a film. GALA is presenting it in the original Spanish with English translations projected above the stage.

The play’s dramatic conflict is partly political — how are these refugees from Republican Spain going to survive when they fall into the grips of Francisco Franco’s rabidly anti-Republican armed forces? And then there’s the conflict between Carmela and Paulino themselves. He is a bit of a chameleon. He puts on an Italian army cap. He clowns. Her tries to win the sympathy of a grumpy (fascist) crowd and a sorrowing (Republican prisoner) contingent. As for Carmela, she’s a professional. She starts with a perky persona. She brings off snappy song-and-dance routines. But she is becoming more and more disgruntled as she thinks about the prisoners. And Paulino becomes more and more disgruntled by Carmela’s disgruntlement. She notes that she is getting her period, maybe that all that is bothering her. But it’s not.

When the prisoners start singing a Republican anthem, “El Paso del Ebro,” with its plaintive chorus that goes “¡Ay, Carmela; ¡Ay, Carmela!” she is galvanized. She abandons her role in a stupid skit about a lecherous physicians who paws a female patient. And she joins in the singing — a gesture not welcomed by the Fascist functionaries.

The GALA production is a joint American-Spanish effort. The director, José Luis Arellano García, is from Spain. So is Mona Martínez (Carmela). The actor who plays Paulino, Diego Mariani, is from Argentina. These three, along with choreographer Chevi Muraday and musical director David R. Peralto and a sturdy team of designers, present a stunning production. Martínez is heroic — but in a funny way. Mariani is craven — but in a funny way. They are both appealing. It is easy to identify with either or both of them. Though some of their routines are embarrassingly ghastly, Martínez and Mariani bring them off with the skill of professionals who are not afraid of ghastliness or embarrassment. They do not create ridiculous incompetents. Now and then they get to strut their stuff, creating moments that might fit in well with gritty productions of Chicago or Cabaret.

And now back to that aching question: “What would I do in these dreadful circumstances?” The issue is not as troubling when one thinks about Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer standing up against the Nazis, or author André Gide telling the terrible truth about Stalin’s show trials or diva extraordinaire Josephine Baker doing secret agent work for the French resistance. Those people were celebrities. Carmela and Paulino are only would-be celebrities. They are lovers and opposites. They are essentially talented but ordinary. Their dilemma is stark — and very troubling if one lets down one’s guard and takes ¡Ay, Carmela! personally.

Director’s Notes

Ay, Carmela! by Jose Sanchis Sinisterra represents the collective tragedy of the Spanish people through the adventures of two insignificant vaudevillians in the middle of the Spanish Civil War. The playwright presents a sentimental, emotive and endearing chronicle of memory, as well as a warm homage to artistic dignity and to human sensibility. The play, through the banality of Paulino and Carmela, reveals the complexity of the human condition that when pushed to its limit, is capable of the highest heroism and the lowest indignity.

I saw this play many years ago as a young child, and it is one of the masterpieces that influenced me to enter this profession. Being able to direct Ay, Carmela! in a theater like GALA, which means so much to me, is a great honor and fills me with pride because both this theater and the play are a true chant for freedom.

Jose Luis Arellano Garcia
September 15, 2011

Cast

• Paulino: Diego Mariani
• Carmela: Mona Martinez

Production Staff

• Director: Jose Luis Arellano Garcia
• Scenic Design: Giorgos Tsappas
• Light & Sound Design: Antonio Serrano
• Costume Design: Rosa Garcia Andujar
• Music Selection & Composition: David R. Perlato
• Choreography: Chevi Muraday
• Properties Design: Tessa Grippaudo
• Stage Manager: Elena Maria Lower
• Technical Director: Andres Luque
• Production Manager: Andres Holder
• Producer: Hugo Medrano
• House Manager: David Kreisberg
• Backstage & Wardrobe Manager: Jenny Cisneros
• Master Electrician: Jenny Hall
• Electricians: Nicholas Staple, Davis Olson, Aaron Waxman, Catherine Girardi, Colin Dieck, Kevin Hasser
• Assistant Technical Director: Ashley Washinski
• Master Carpenter: Linda Di Bernardo
• Scenic Charge: Amy Kellett
• Light Board Operator: Elena Maria Lower
• Spotlight: Christian Sanchez
• Surtitles Operator: Daniel Perez
• Photographers: Lonnie Tague, Paulo Andres Montenegro
• Graphic Design: Watermark Design
• Playbill: Christopher Shell
• Production: Olga Reguilon, Nuria Chacon
• Technical Director: Antonio Serrano
• Costume Shop Managers: Pipa & Milagros

Disclaimer: GALA Hispanic Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

]]> /2011/04/review-gala-divorcees-evangelicals-and-vegetarians/ Mon, 11 Apr 2011 16:47:29 +0000 http://www.showbizradio.net/?p=6408 Divorcées, Evangelists and Vegetarian exemplifies preposterous, whiz bang farce.]]> Divorcées, Evangelicals and Vegetarians by Gustavo Ott
GALA Hispanic Theatre
Tivoli Theatre, Washington DC
Through May 1st
2 hrs with one intermission
Performed in Spanish with English supertitles
$20-$36 with discounts for students, military and seniors
Reviewed April 8th, 2011

Some 20 years ago a Pedro Almadóvar movie — Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown — was making the rounds. It featured three distraught women who were having man trouble. One of the troublesome men was Antonio Banderas. The women were distraught in a kind of funny way.

Three distraught women who are kind of funny are the title characters in Venezuelan playwright Gustavo Ott’s farcical drama Divorcées, Evangelists and Vegetarians. It is now playing at GALA, where it was a popular girls-night-out attraction eight years ago. Its bodes to repeat its girls-night-out appeal. The many 30-somethingish women in the audience at a recent performance were guffawing with delight.

Ott’s title characters are Gloria, a flamboyant narcissist; Beatriz, a frustrated empty nester; and Meche, a religious fanatic. Gloria is a vegetarian — but only sometimes. She adopts that guise when it enhances her far out pretensions. It also has helped her seduce a married macrobiotic vegan. Beatriz is the divorcée. Her son grew up. Her husband grew dull. She felt empty. She dumped her husband and became downright depressed. Meche the evangelist is a sort of secular nun, seemingly an evangelical Protestant, much given to crossing herself. And she uses a tote bearing a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe — a distinctly Roman Catholic icon. Meche’s problem is what is sometimes referred to as a compulsion to entertain “impure thoughts.” That’s right, the well-known sin of lust.

Gloria, played by Menchu Esteban, is the trio’s energizer. She bubbles and burbles. She is uninhibited. She teases and cajoles. She is stressed and discombobulated. She offers herself up as a role model and life coach for the bogged-down Meche and Beatriz. Meche (Gabriela Fernández-Coffey) ricochets back and forth between exaltation and exhaustion. One minute she is hysterically exorcising the demon of lasciviousness from Beatriz. The next she is lamenting her disappointments — which include the lack of a lust outlet. Beatriz (Monalisa Arias) laments frustrated vocational ambitions. She had hoped to be a bustling career woman but became a resentful wife and mother.

All three of director Abel López’s actresses hit a fast, agitated pace early on and keep it up right through to the end — almost. When the explosive Esteban is off-stage hunting down her married lover for a few minutes, her satellites are suddenly underpowered.

It is just as well that López keeps his showing whizzing along. Ott is a very permissive writer when it comes to worrisome implausibilities. Besides Meche being an apparent Protestant despite Roman Catholic appurtenances there are a few other oddities. Why is Gloria’s ex-lover suddenly enjoying a clinch with Beatriz in a movie theater? And how come the 21st Century Manhattan movie theater has a 1940s usherette (Meche)? And how come a NY easy listening music radio station is suddenly broadcasting a news flash about a fatality in Central Park? And who are these sketchy, cartoony characters, anyway? And how come the plurals in the title? There’s only one divorcée, one evangelist and one vegetarian. And … ? And … ? And … ?

But, in the immemorial way of farce, the flow incidents in director López’s production keeps rushing along, barely giving objections a chance to arise and put a drag on momentum.

Female characters in groups of three generate some kind of special dramatic dynamism. Male writers find all sorts of inspiration therein. Almadóvar mastered the comedy version. Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters is a perfect wry, poignant drama. The three sisters in Shakespeare’s King Lear inhabit the depths of tragedy. As for Divorcées, Evangelists and Vegetarian, it exemplifies preposterous, whiz bang farce.

Cast

• Gloria: Menchu Esteban
• Meche: Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey
• Beatriz: Monalisa Arias

Crew

• Director: Abel Lopez
• Set Design: Daniel Pinha
• Lighting Design: Jason Cowperthwaite
• Costumes: Lynly Saunders
• Sound Design: Brendon Vierra
• Properties: Sofia Gawer-Fische
• Stage Manager: Ivan Cano
• Production Manager: Andres Holder
• Technical Director: Andres Luque
• Producer: Hugo Medrano

Disclaimer: GALA Hispanic Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

]]> /2011/02/review-gala-erendira/ Tue, 08 Feb 2011 02:51:22 +0000 http://www.showbizradio.net/?p=6164 The Innocent Eréndira and her Heartless Grandmother, adapted from the Gabriel García Márquez short story by Jorge Alí Triana and Carlos José Reyes
Gala Hispanic Theatre
Tivoli Theatre, Washington DC
Through February 27th
1:35 with one 15 minute intermission
$20-$36
Reviewed February 6th, 2011

So what about the green blood? Where is it? For me, the green bloodbath is a high point in Gabriel García Márquez’s long short story The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and her Heartless Grandmother.

I don’t think I’m giving too much away by revealing that the Gala Hispanic Theatre production of a stage adaptation of Eréndira is totally green blood free. If you’ve read the story … well, be warned. If you’re unfamiliar with García Márquez’s early (1972) exercise in magical realism, well, be warned that some of the magic and some of the realism have been drained away (understandably — a stage has production limits not shared by a page.)

Adaptations are always prey for quibblers who are fondly protective of the original. But, even as a quibbling fond protector, I’ll admit that this adaptation by Marquéz’s fellow Colombians Jorge Alí Triana and Carlos José Reyes is an engaging and imaginative rendition of a bizarre tale. The current Gala Hispanic Theatre production is in Spanish, with English surtitles.

Here’s the basic story: Eréndira is a guileless 17-year-old orphan. She lives, more or less as a slave, with her batty, self-obsessed grandmother. When by accident Eréndira knocks over a candle and burns down her grandmother’s palatial house, a bad situation becomes much, much worse. Grandma figures that granddaughter owes her thousands and thousands of pesos. As a former prostitute, grandma can only think of one way for granddaughter to pay off this huge debt: prostitution.

So off they go to remote places were womenless men are stationed. Eréndira services them by the hundreds. Then some priests and nun intervene. They turn Eréndira into their own slave, charged with keeping the nuns’ convent stairs immaculately white.

True love raises it’s beguiling head. But despite the arrival of a ragged prince charming, a happy lovy-dovey ending is not part of the Garcia Márquez plan.

The “Eréndira” scenario is not intrinsically dramatic. The title character is a passive non-entity, a helpless victim to whom mostly unpleasant things happen. The grandmother is a sensational specimen; but once we’re onto her routine, she is not a source of dramatic surprises. And then there’s the familiar monotonous dynamic of “road” stories. The main characters go here, they go there, they do this, they do that — it’s one damn thing after another.

García Márquez’s coruscating prose (and Miguel de Cervantes’s coruscating prose in Don Quixote, to take another on-the-road example) take hold of us. But the Eréndira story is long on baroque description and short on utilitarian dialogue — which makes adaptation tricky.

Adapter Triana directs the Gala production. The considerable strength of his show relies mainly on good actors having fun with colorful characters.

As Grandma, Colombian actress Laura García is blazingly colorful. García has a gravelly voice that serves well for heedless slave-driving moments. And it serves splendidly for raspy renditions of moldy romantic boleros — imagine “Bésame mucho” as perhaps rendered by an aging Kermit the Frog.

Seriously excellent singing interludes are provided by José Arturo Chacón. Composer Germán Arrieta has provided ironic little ditties that comment on the action. Chacón (who is the show’s music director) performs them with sly, wry bravura. His sung comments are reminiscent of the biting wit of the Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill collaborations the early 20th Century — Threepenny Opera, for example.

Like Brecht and Weill, the Marquéz/Arrieta/Triana collaborators do not flinch when it comes to preposterous incidents. The prince charming character, played by Chilean Ignacio Menendes, resorts to heaps of rat poison, a passel of dynamite and, finally, a pruning knife in his efforts to win Eréndira. Menendes is indeed charming, unspoiled but relentless, lusty and libidinous, but also romantic and tentative.

The ungainly role of Eréndira falls to Paola Baldión. She is sometimes called upon to represent sleepwalking. She can say “Yes, Grandmother” in her sleep. She can also service throngs of clients while in a comatose state. Even when she is close to fully alert she never scintillates. Baldión is true to her character and true to the play text — but what an unrewarding sort of loyalty!

Part of Baldión’s dilemma is that she personifies an implausible but perennial fantasy — the abuse victim who “really likes it,” the sex worker who “really likes me.”

A supporting cast of 10 actors all play two or three roles each. They provide vivid little vignettes. The unfortunate Alvaro Palau, however, is cast as a sort of zombie statue in a silver lamé shroud. The part is not only irrelevant — it is also distracting and perplexing.

Lighting by Klyph Stanford, set by Elizabeth Jenkins McFadden and costumes by Marcela Villanueva help create an exotic and constantly shifting stage picture.

Gabriel García Márquez has a lot of name recognition. His books, mostly remarkably “100 Years of Solitude,” have sold millions of copies. He won a Nobel Prize in 1982. His fame offers tempting marketing prospects to theaters. But his relentlessly idiosyncratic style is hardly perfect for stage adaptation. Not that green blood would be an impossible technical challenge. But one can understand, sensational special effect not withstanding, why it is one of the idiosyncracies that director Triana decided to do without.

Disclaimer: Gala Hispanic Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

]]> /2010/06/review-gala-el-bola/ Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:02:49 +0000 http://www.showbizradio.net/?p=5107 El Bola.]]> El Bola — Cuba’s King of Song by Héctor Quintero
Gala Hispanic Theatre
GALA Theatre-Tivoli, Washington, DC
Through June 27th
2 hours, with one intermission
$20-$38
Reviewed June 10, 2010

There are three known ways to construct a successful musical tribute show: 1. Just offer a fabulous revue, one song after another, as with the Ain’t Misbehavin’ the Fats Waller tribute. 2. Do the songs interspersed with a snappy true (or mostly true, or somewhat true in parts) story of the artists’ lives: Jersey Boys, about the Four Seasons, for example. 3. Perform the fabulous songs and paste on a totally unrelated but passably absorbing story — in the manner of Mama Mia,, with its finger poppin’ ABBA songs garnished with a loopy story about a woman who had sex one weekend with three different men, a funsy ’70s excess that led to awkward ’90s consequences.

And then there’s El Bola — Cuba’s King of Song, a tribute musical by the Cuban playwright Héctor Quintero that is receiving is premiere production at Gala Theatre.

Quintero tries to have his tribute every which way. It’s part song revue, part bio-musical and part songs-plus-grafted-on-story. The songs are so-so. The biography is sketchy. And the grafted on story is shaky.

The putative subject of Quintero’s show is El Bola (1911-71), a popular Cuban singer and pianist. We hear his songs. And we are treated to meager scraps of fan mag information about his life. He seemed unhappy. He was homosexual. He was celebrated in parts of Latin America and Europe as well as in Cuba. He was homely. He was very black and his nickname, Bola de Nieve (snowball), was a joke. His real name was Ignacio Jacinto Villa. One device for tossing in biographical information is an insubstantial journalist character who just happens along.

In El Bola, three singers interpret the title character’s repertoire. Marcelino Valdés is the one who represents and impersonates Bola. The other two are Enrique Divine, who plays a stagestruck transsexual, and Anamer Castrello, who is more your bosomy belter type. None of the three is a knockout, showstopping singer, but none of them is embarrassing, either.

Quintero’s extraneous story has to do with a playwright, not surprisingly named Héctor. He is working on a tribute musical about El Bola. To generate some conflict we have Héctor’s wife. She doesn’t like Bola’s songs or his style. That story line quickly fades. Taking its place is a financial dilemma. The show’s supposed backers withdraw their support. Then comes a Santería riff (having to do with Afro-Caribbean religion) and a buried treasure incident. On top of all that is information about the transsexual’s unhappy love life. Her Mexican boyfriend has disappeared.

Both the Santería and the transsexual bits provide dubious comedy.

Three dancers add distracting bits of showbiz flash.

The main attraction of El Bola is nostalgia. Those who pine for mid-20th Century romantic boleros and bluesy ballads, pepped up with the occasional folkloric ditty, get a rare opportunity to indulge their longings at El Bola. And those with an interest in Latino pop history may find the show useful. Also, there’s the Hispanic language factor. Gala performs in Spanish with English super-titles.

But those of us who are simply fond of well-made human interest shows with songs will probably be frustrated by El Bola. It strays away from all three of the well-worn paths that can lead to successful tribute musicals.

Cast

• Hector: Carlos Castillo
• Bola: Marcelino Valdes
• Esposa: Karen Morales
• Marian: Enrique Divine
• Periodista: Gino Tassara
• Madrina: Anamer Castrello
• Margarito: Jonas Minino
• Dancers: Alvaro Palau Palomino, Ari Hernandez Myers, Jesus Gonzalez

Musicians

• Piano: Didier Prossaird
• Saxophone, Flute: Antonio Orta
• Drums: Mark Merella
• Bass: Steve Sachse

Crew

• Producing Artistic Director: Hugo Medrano
• Associate Producing Director: Abel Lopez
• Director: Hugo Medrano
• Musical Director/Arranger: Didier Prossaird
• Scenic Design: Osbel Susman-Pena
• Light Design & Projections: Klyph Stanford
• Costume Design: Dan Iwaniec
• Sound Design: Matt Otto
• Properties Design: Mariana Fernandez
• Hair & Makeup Design: Jesus Gonzalez
• Stage Manager: Lorena Sabogal
• Technical Director: Eric Lucas
• Production Manager: Mariana Osorio
• Producer: Abel Lopez

Disclaimer: Gala Hispanic Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

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