Everyone loves a clown who makes us laugh. But some clowns move us to tears. This third in a series of Hispanic plays, Romina and the Circus Bellini from the Bojiganga Theater Company in Mexico, may not represent the grand scale of the Cirque du Soleil or Barnum & Bailey’s The Greatest Show on Earth, but this one-act puts us through an intense catharsis.

Once again Teatro De La Luna brings experimental theater to the Gunston Arts Center and only the best performers from Latin America. Veronica Albarran, as Romina, and Nora Lamadrid, as Chanfaya, give mesmerizing virtuoso performances. Both characters have sad-happy tales to tell.

Red-wigged Chanfaya, costumed in plaid skirt, sequined red jacket, and wearing striped socks looks like the traditional clown. But Romina, the narrator who does most of the talking, complains how rain is ruining their act. In Mexico, rains are supposed to end in August. The circus isn’t what it used to be.

In the program, the footnote, "Loosely based on a story fragment by Anton Chekhov," seems too significant to ignore. What is not widely known is that Chekhov, one of the collaborators with the Moscow Arts Theater in the early 1900s, loved the circus. The Russian playwright drew upon the circus in his short stories. His stage characters represented real life and real people to make fun of life’s contradictions. One slip or stumble of the foot and happiness is destroyed. Similarly, Mexican playwright Alejandro Velis portrays real people behind the clown or acrobat to show life as it is.

In Romina and the Circus Bellini, the play itself is a contradiction. Romina, dressed in black tux, tells us the cabaret theater is frivolous by comparison to the circus, because there is no risk. Yet, in this show the performers break the proscenium and interact with the audience in cabaret style.

Similar to Chekhov, there’s an intense nostalgia for the grace and style of the past. This memory play takes us back to an era before television when live performance was important. Romina tells us the music used to be live. Now the music is downsized to recordings. And the piped in rendition of "Don’t Rain on My Parade" is in English, not Spanish.

In another moment, however, less is more. When Romina slinks and pulls a cigarette lighter out of her bra in a spoof of a torch singer, much is made with one prop. The cigarette holder becomes a clarinet or drum stick.

Throughout, we are thrust into Romina’s memory of her dead husband/lover, Lucus Bellini, founder of the circus, who learned discipline from the Russians, creators of The Moscow Circus, "the best in the world." Bellini so loved the circus that even when offered one million dollars to break up their act, he refused the offer. It must be the circus is more than mindless spectacle. The circus means passion, imagination and risk. But the audiences aren’t coming anymore. Now, even though Bellini pays high cost liability insurance, people prefer to stay home and watch television.

Romina comes to hate the public for their apathy. "I considered the stage sacred," she tells us. Think of the lives of those who start preparing at birth for their five minutes in the spotlight. Think of the great effort that goes into creating the art of the circus. And think of the broken hearts of backstage love affairs that cost Bellini hospital insurance for heart attacks.

The circus makes the grotesque and bizarre relevant. Romina pantomimes how the biggest baby in the world now weighs in at 700 pounds as the fattest woman in the world. Chanfaya, in ballerina costume, and Romina, with umbrella, pantomime the high wire balancing act to remind us of death-defying risk.

Because the performer’s greatest reward is applause from the crowd, Romina becomes the psychic while Chanfeya, dressed as the fortune teller, works us up into cheers. Romina turns her back to the audience. And surprise. Chanfeya walks up to me sitting in the front row and touches my glasses. Romina, her back to me and the audience, guesses that my glasses are being touched. The great Romina even guesses the number of hairs on a head of hair. How can you check out her accuracy? You get the idea. The audience loves direct contact.

But the harsh reality is that Romina had to break with her family to run away with the circus to tour Mexico and South America. So the circus performers become her family and her life becomes life on the road.

When Lucus dies in car accident, Romina falls into deep despair and can’t go on. She scolds the playwright for allowing Bellini to die. It carries a deeper meaning as if she’s asking about loss: Why are people we love allowed to die? Why is our loved one gone? Why did this happen?  Without the inspiration of Bellini, Romina sells the circus. But Romina and Chanfaya remain a part of the circus by acting out this tribute to Bellini. Now only memory keeps the circus alive.

The image of a small covered wagon pulled across the stage at the end suggests that the circus moves on into other theatrical forms. Or that pioneers take risks. But the circus used to come to town in big red wagons or trains. And the references to television media suggest the present day. For me, a 19^th century wagon comes to mind and doesn’t work as a symbol without more context.

What worked were the emotionally moving performances from Veronica Albarran. Her emotional agony at the loss of the Bellini Circus and Nora Lamadrid’s charm as the psychic’s partner earned the standing ovation at the end.

Romina and the Circus Bellini (Romina Y El Bellini), by Alejandro Velis, continues this weekend at the Gunston Arts Center, Theatre Two, 2700 S. Lang St., Arlington, VA, Thurs. 11/16, Fri. 11/17, 8 p.m.; Sat. 11/18, 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets: Thurs. and Sat. matinee, $25. Evening performances, $30. $5 off for seniors and students. 10% discount for 10 or more. Live English dubbing through easy-to-use headsets. Free parking available. Friday, post-show discussion.

Link: http://dctheatrereviews.com/review/2006/11/14/romina-and-the-circus-bellini-teatro-de-la-luna-bring-back-the-clowns/

Who knew that the South American nation of Uruguay had a National Comedy School?

I do now, having sat through “How to Fill a Wild Bikini” [“Como Rellenar un Bikini Salvaje”], the opening production in a three-play series put on by Teatro de la Luna in its Celebration of Hispanic Theatre. The production opens the company's 16th season. 

Written by Brazilian Miguel Falabella, it has been performed over the past decade by Uruguyan television personality (and comedy-school graduate) Graciela Rodríguez, back in the U.S. for a return engagement, having performed at Teatro de la Luna earlier in the year. 

It's a welcome return, as this one-act, one-woman, multi-character comedy is a true delight, whether one listens in Spanish or through dubbed English.

While the name of the play sounds a little titillating - sorry, I couldn't resist - it's purposely vague. In fact, the production starts out as a Greek tragedy. Then the fun begins. 

Soon, Rodríguez is performing as a host of connected characters, including a neurotic patient named Mabel and her psychoanalyst (who has problems of her own). Husbands, children, the maid, a suicide-hotline operator . . . new characters are introduced throughout the show, which runs at a break-neck pace. 

Regular readers know I'm not a fan of one-performer shows, having been subjected as a child to Laurence Luckinbill as LBJ in a show charitably described as ponderous. But that was then and this is now, and Rodríguez spices up the show with plenty of fast-paced comedy, some of it quite risqué and therefore suited for ages 15 through adult. It all takes about an hour and 20 minutes. 

The show was directed by Omar Varela; the collaboration between performer and director seems to have worked well. The music (Estela Magnone and Alexis Buensenor) was effective. There was a Spartan set and Rodríguez performed in a single, multi-purpose costume (Nelson Mancebo). 

The theater company has reverted to simultaneous translation for this show, with those of us more comfortable in English wearing headphones (rather than watching supertitles used in most recent Teatro de la Luna productions). Marcela Ferlito, who did the simultaneous translation on Saturday afternoon, was a hoot with the dialects, adding to the overall flavor of the show.

liked the performance enough that I'll be back in two weekends to see the opening of “On the Loose, Hot and Dangerous” [“Suelta, Ardiente y Peligrosa”], which also stars Rodríguez, this time paired with Fernando Larrosa. The final show in the series is “Romina and the Circus Bellini” [“Romina y El Bellini”], performed by the Bojiganga Theater Company of Mexico.
All performances are at Gunston Arts Center Theatre II, 2700 South Lang St. in Arlington. For a complete schedule and ticket information, call (703) 548-3092 or see the Web site at www.teatrodelaluna.org.

Washington Post Special to The Washington Post Thursday, October 19, 2006; Page C05 by Celia Wren Rodríguez Stuffs a Lot in 'How to Fill a Wild Bikini'

She's a rhapsody in fire-engine red: an elfin figure in a red jumpsuit, red shoes and a red turban, as well as a red cape that, in her stretched-out hands, resembles wings. Stalking across a stark black set in the opening moments of "How to Fill a Wild Bikini," Uruguayan actress Graciela Rodríguez looks like some flamboyant sorcerer casting a spell. It's an image of solemn theatricality, but don't be fooled: Brazilian playwright Miguel Falabella has a trick up his sleeve in this clever if not terribly memorable one-woman comedy, now making its U.S. premiere in a Spanish-language staging hosted by Teatro de la Luna. The woman in red intones a few lines from an adaptation of "Antigone" and then, faster than you can say Pirandello, the fourth wall shatters. Dropping the cape on the floor -- near the bench that is the set's only furniture -- the actress announces that her nerves prevent her from going through with the performance. Evidently, she suffers from stage fright so excruciating that she's obliged to make up stories about audience members to distract herself. With that admission, the play taxis back down the runway and takes off. Ostensibly impersonating the products of her own yarn-spinning, the actress introduces a panoply of oddball contemporary individuals who are linked either by relationships or by chance conversations. Dominating these rather cartoonish characters is the whiny Mabel -- a housewife so irrationally petulant that even her officious psychoanalyst hangs up on her. The psychoanalyst, the psychoanalyst's self-destructive daughter, a sanctimonious hotline staffer at the Center for the Understanding of Anonymous Suicidals, an egocentric would-be actress named Vanessa who seems to be the Uruguayan equivalent of a Valley Girl -- these folks form a chain of interdependency that gradually distills into a narrative about loneliness and human bonding. "We're all connected by an invisible thread, which forms a huge spider web that is the world," the neurotic-actress character points out, in a remark that sums up the play's vision. It's not exactly a novel insight, but on the plus side, the multiple-personality format creates a terrific showcase for Rodríguez's mordant caricatures. Under the lucid direction of Omar Varela, the actress submerges herself in one eccentric after another: endowing Mabel with a braying voice and pathetic head tic; reproducing the slow waddle of an illiterate maid; high-kicking her way through Vanessa's aerobics routine. Unfortunately, audiences tuning in to the simultaneous English-translation on headset will find it hard to follow all the madcap twists of these impersonations, as the translator's voice tends to drown out the performer's. Still, it's a zesty and admirably detailed turn that attests to Rodríguez's artistry -- Teatro de la Luna press materials dub her "Uruguay's #1 comedienne" -- especially for those who missed her in "I Might Not Be Happy, but at Least I'm Married" at the theater this year. (Rodríguez returns next Thursday in Varela's comic two-hander "On the Loose, Hot and Dangerous," also part of Teatro de la Luna's Celebration of Hispanic Theater. And November will bring the festival's third installment, "Romina and the Circus Bellini.") As for the current production, fans of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue should be warned: Falabella's slyly titled show has nothing to do with bikinis. Como Rellenar un Bikini Salvaje (How to Fill a Wild Bikini), by Miguel Falabella. Directed by Omar Varela; music, Estela Magnone and Alexis Buenseñor; costumes, Nelson Mancebo. In Spanish, with English translation via headset by Omar Varela and A. Caballero. About 70 minutes.

Washington Post Special to The Washington Post Thursday, October 19, 2006; Page VA07 by Michael J. Toscano Las Comedias Lead Off For Teatro de la Luna "Wild Bikini" Stars Popular Uruguayan Actress

Teatro de la Luna, Arlington's Spanish-language theater company, is launching its 16th season with a three-play series called "A Celebration of Hispanic Theater." The first installment, now onstage at the Gunston Arts Center, is a one-woman comedy by Brazilian playwright Miguel Falabella called "Como Rellenar un Bikini Salvaje," or "How to Fill a Wild Bikini." The production is from the visiting Regina Productions of Montevideo, Uruguay, and stars popular Uruguayan actress and comedienne Graciela Rodríguez. She has returned to the local theater following her appearance in "I May Not be Happy, but at Least I'm Married" during this past year's International Festival of Hispanic Theater. There are no bikinis in "How to Fill a Wild Bikini," as Rodríguez fills only a simple, although flamboyantly red jumpsuit during the 80-minute performance. But the energetic comedienne does try on more than a dozen personalities as she explores such themes as conflict between parents and children and the disconnection and loneliness of life in a modern city. Following a somber opening that has her entering the performance area from behind the audience, chanting what seems to be a monologue from ancient Greek tragedy, Rodríguez abruptly switches course and launches into an earthy stream-of-consciousness look at life today. While Uruguayan Embassy officials and other members of the local Uruguayan community on hand opening night laughed heartily at a number of topical references that passed right over the heads of the rest of us, most of the characters and territory covered in the show seem familiar enough. Rodríguez assumes different voices and personas ranging from her basic character, an everywoman named Mabel, to other people who both delight and bedevil her, including a daughter who sounds like an American valley girl -- in Spanish, of course. Under direction by Uruguayan actor-director-playwright Omar Varela, Rodríguez is highly animated, moving around and either sitting or reclining on top of a low bench that is her only prop. The show seems tailor-made for her talents, and, in fact, she toured in it for about five years, winning several top Latin American acting awards. Teatro de la Luna has returned to simultaneous English translation, via comfortable headsets, for this series, following use of projected surtitles in a number of recent productions. The live audio translation is superior, especially as provided here by agile and energetic Marcela Ferlito Walder, as audience members do not have to take their eyes off the actors to try to read what they're saying. The audio feed blends seamlessly into the presentation. Unfortunately, the company will probably return to surtitles for future plays, finding it generally easier to program a translation into the projection system instead of staffing each performance with translators. "How to Fill a Wild Bikini" continues this weekend, and then Rodríguez will return with Fernando Larrosa in Regina Productions' "Suelta, Ardiente y Peligrosa," or "On the Loose, Hot and Dangerous, by Varela, Oct. 26-Nov. 4. It's another comedy from Uruguay with two actors portraying a variety of friends and family members in comic social critique. This show will be followed by Bojiganga Theater Company of Mexico City and its production of " Romina y el Bellini," or "Romina and the Circus Bellini," Nov. 9-18. The play, written and directed by Alejandro Velis and starring Mexico's Verónica Albarrán and Mitzi Elizalde, is a collage of impressions that show the path of a clown's life in the circus. "A Celebration of Hispanic Theater," presented by Teatro de la Luna, continues through Nov. 18, at Gunston Arts Center's Theatre Two, 2700 S. Lang St., Arlington. Showtime is 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, with matinees at 3 p.m. Saturday. Tickets for Friday and Saturday nights are $30; $25 for students and seniors over 60; for Thursdays and Saturday matinees, $25; $20 for students and seniors.