2011 SUR... ¡PASIÓN DE TEATRO! 2012

Temporada

XXI


Críticas de Prensa


Solo Petru (Petru: All by Himself)

DC Theatre Scene, by Rosalind Lacy

No Puedo Vivir sin Mucama (I Cannot Live Without a Maid)

DC Theatre Scene, by Rosalind Lacy

Familia en Construcción (Family Under Construction)

DC Theatre Scene, by Rosalind Lacy

El Inmigrante (The Immigrant)

DC Theatre Scene, by Rosalind Lacy
Washington Post, by Celia Wren

Críticas de Prensa


Solo Petru (Petru: All by Himself)


DC Theatre Scene

Washington’s Liveliest Theatre Website
by Rosalind Lacy

Last May, when The 3 Rascals (A3Vidos) performed their rioplatense cafe concert for Teatro de la Luna, the moon was at its brightest in twenty years. Comedian Petru Valenski was an unforgettable member of that trio. He has returned, accompanied, again, by an astronomical event. Look up into the sky tonight and you’ll find Venus and Jupiter are two of the brightest objects in the night sky. As dazzling as that is, comedian Petru Valenski from Uruguay, alone in a spotlight onstage at the Gunston Arts Center, outshines them both in Solo Petru (Petru: All By Himself).
For those of you not familiar with the rioplatense style of comic routine, it is needling satire that goes to the edge of crazy; it’s always spontaneous and promises to induce healing laughter.

Now that this charismatic comic is back bursting with warm bigheartedness, you have a second chance to enjoy his frolic and fun.

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No Puedo Vivir sin Mucama (I Cannot Live Without a Maid)


DC Theatre Scene

Washington’s Liveliest Theatre Website
by Rosalind Lacy

From a blackout on stage, we hear her voice: “I am the most important person in my boss-lady’s life.” A musical fanfare resounds from overhead. Ta-dah! Lights come up center stage. And Perla Laske, a renowned actress from Argentina, seated on a throne as a Paraguayan wielding a broom like a scepter, introduces herself as “The mucama!.

But wait! What’s a mucama? For us, in American culture, we can identify a mucama as hired help, a housekeeper, cleaning lady or nanny. In Latino countries, the label applies to many domestic roles. With this solo performance, Laske gives us a series of funny vignettes about the relationships between mucamas and their bosses.

Costumed in white apron dotted with black polka dots, and sporting a wild black wig, Laske, now the Paraguayan maid who has worked without pay, tells us she has a mission in life: she will start an agency to create jobs for “patronas” or “bosses.” This may be the only way to guarantee that Boss-Ladies will make enough money so they can say, “I can’t live without my maid.”

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Familia en Construcción (Family Under Construction)


DC Theatre Scene

Washington’s Liveliest Theatre Website
by Rosalind Lacy

Five madcap players from Spain fire up wholesome, exciting ‘theatre with a capital T’ for this weekend’s addition to The Moon’s Embrace, Teatro de la Luna’s newest festival. The tight-knit troupe from the Factoria Teatro company deliver dialogue so rapid-fire, switch characters, scenes and props with such split-second ease, they take your breath away.

Family Under Construction (Familia En Construccion) is a deeply funny satire performed with such flamboyance and fun, it has a true improvisational feel. The company and its take on ‘family’ will get under your skin and into your head.

At the opening, actors Ivan Ugalde, Inigo Asiain, Salvador Sanz, Victoria Teijeiro, and Montse Diez don head scarves, beards and robes for the Nativity scene in a riotous take-off on the Holy Family. We recognize Joseph, Mary, a bleating ox, a braying donkey, and Jesus, displayed in a drawing, held by an actor, as an infant in the crèche. The scene is shattered when Jesus rebels and leaves home to fulfill “…my destiny.” The actor playing Joseph yells, “This isn’t working!” So the players decide to get real and start again. This time with scenes taken from real families, possibly, their own families, since this script originated improvisationally. They play unnamed archetypes: Mother, Father, Sons 1 and 2, Daughter-in-law and Grandmother. 

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El Inmigrante (The Immigrant)


DC Theatre Scene

Washington’s Liveliest Theatre Website
by Rosalind Lacy

Why do they keep crossing the border? Slide projections of hate-graffiti flash by on a back wall screen: “We Are Against Immigrants,” “Get out, Nicaraguans,” “Illiterate Immigrant,” followed by by a newspaper headline, “Three Costa Ricans Held in Nicaragua.” Border crossings taking place between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, two Mesoamerican countries are unusual for us yet we don’t often hear about racial discrimination in Latino countries.

The Immigrants is based on true events included in a 1997 newspaper article, “I am also Nica,” by Costa Rican Rodrigo Soto. Jose Mejia Espinoza (Cesar Melendez) crosses a border into Costa Rica,that offers jobs but discriminates against skin color. He’s hungry and wants to send money back to his wife, Maria. Jose, is an archetypal immigrant who is having a rough time of it.

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Washington Post

‘El Inmigrante’ gives hot-button

issue a scarred human face

by Celia Wren

Washington Post Staff Writer

February 27, 2011

You can’t reduce Jose Mejia Espinoza to an abstraction: He’s too vivid. That was obvious from the opening moments of writer-performer Cesar Melendez’s solo show “El Inmigrante (The Immigrant),” which ran at the Gunston Arts Center in Arlington last weekend. Mejia, the play’s Nicaraguan-born protagonist, wore shoes held together with duct tape. A bloody cut curved beneath one eye, and there were wounds on his arms. Most strikingly, he had an odd habit of conversing with a crucifix — not in conventional prayer but in bursts of argument, gossip, chitchat, rebuke and even mockery. If it were possible to talk the ear off a piece of religious iconography, Mejia would have managed it in this production, which opened Teatro de la Luna’s multi-play winter celebration “El Abrazo Lunar/The Moon’s Embrace,” running through March 17.

The character’s idiosyncratic volubility and arresting physical presence help explain the track record of “El Inmigrante,” which has played to over a quarter-million people since the Costa Rican company Teatro La Polea premiered it in 2001. Inspired by a 1997 article in the Costa Rican press, the show deals with the phenomenon of anti-immigrant sentiment: After braving enormous hardship to gain entry to Costa Rica, where he finds a construction job, Mejia meets with resentment and abuse from fellow laborers and others. It’s a tale that resonates in contemporary America, where the issue of illegal immigration often makes headlines — in coverage of recently enacted state laws, for instance. But while journalism and political discourse sometimes deal with immigration in terms of policy and statistics, “El Inmigrante” puts a face, and an example of suffering, front and center.

Performing in Spanish (simultaneous English translation was available via headset), Melendez steered his voluble, agonized hero through a spectrum of emotion. One moment, the character was kneeling near his bed (a line of milk crates) making stabbing gestures as he imagined taking a chisel to a bigoted acquaintance. Minutes later, he was quietly blowing a tearful kiss to his spouse, far away in Nicaragua. At another point, he flashed a sarcastic grin as he teased and harangued the crucifix — his behavior not impiety, it seemed, but rather an attempt to engage fully with God.

“El Inmigrante” did occasionally feel like a thinly veiled lecture on the value of empathy. But with emphatic colored lighting, a few projections (of xenophobic graffiti and more) and a soundtrack that paired dramatic instrumentals with unnerving, grating sounds, the show was more often a lively meditation on what happens when prejudice and self-interest trump compassion. Teatro de la Luna’s “El Abrazo Lunar” lineup continues with “Familia en Construcción (Family Under Construction),” from Spain’s Factoria Teatro (March 1-3) and “No Puedo Vivir sin Mucama (I Can’t Live Without a Maid),” by Argentine writer/performer Perla Laske (March 8-10). The final production, running March 15-17, will be “Solo Petru (Petru: All by Himself),” a cafe-concert-style piece performed by Uruguay’s Petru Valenski, whose “Atrevidos (The Three Rascals)” visited Teatro de la Luna in 2011. All three productions are billed as U.S. premieres.

© 1996-2012 The Washington Post

 

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Funciones

Semana 1
Costa Rica

Jueves 2/23 (8PM)

Viernes 2/24 (8PM)
Sábado 2/25 (3PM)
Sábado 2/25 (8PM)
Semana 2
España

Jueves 3/1 (8PM)

Viernes 3/2 (8PM)
Sábado 3/3 (3PM)
Sábado 3/3 (8PM)
Semana 3
Argentina

Jueves 3/8 (8PM)

Viernes 3/9 (8PM)
Sábado 3/10 (3PM)
Sábado 3/10 (8PM)
Semana 4
Uruguay

Jueves 3/15 (8PM)

Viernes 3/16 (8PM)

Sábado 3/17 (3PM)
Sábado 3/17 (8PM)