2012

UNA LUNA LLENA... DE TEATRO

2013

Temporada

XXII


Críticas de Prensa


Palabras Encadenadas / Killing Words

DC Theatre Scene, by Rosalind Lacy

Cartas de las Golondrinas / Letters from the Swallows

DC Metro Theater Arts, by Colleen Sproull
DC Theatre Scene, by Rosalind Lacy

Jesucristo / Jesus Christ

DC Theatre Scene, by Rosalind Lacy

Othello... Sniff

DC Theatre Scene, by Rosalind Lacy
The Examiner, by Barbara Mackay (Special to The Washington Examiner)
Washington Post, by Celia Wren

Críticas de Prensa


Palabras Encadenadas / Killing Words


DC Theatre Scene

Washington’s Liveliest Theatre Website
by Rosalind Lacy

This one-act psychological thriller starts up with a video confession from an on-stage projector. What is chilling is the matter-of-fact way Ramon (Antonio Delli), in a full-faced close-up, tells us in a hushed voice, how he killed an old woman. “….I feel no remorse, not the slightest feeling of guilt. Nothing…..I strangled her…..She was old and couldn’t defend herself.”

Immediately, we are lured into an existentialist world, reminiscent of French novelist/playwright Albert Camus’ The Stranger (L’Etranger), whose protagonist irrationally kills and confesses to feeling no personal responsibility for any actions in his life. By contrast, in Killing Words, just what does Ramon intend to do with the ex-wife, whom he claims to have once madly loved? He addresses her with his poetry spoken like a true schizophrenic: “Cruel love, listen,/for you, my body trembles,/…You and I play together/in forgotten fields,/you and I hear voices/that nobody hears anymore…..”

Venezuelan Elba Escobar is well-known to Teatro de la Luna audiences from former festivals. In 2010, Escobar performed her one-woman hit, My Husband is a Cuckold/Mi Marido es un Cornudo. And last year, in 2011, she directed Relatos Borrachos/Tales Told Under the Influence, about people who drink too much.

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Cartas de las Golondrinas / Letters from the Swallows


DC Metro Theater Arts

by Colleen Sproull

This was my first experience with Teatro de la Luna, which now celebrates its 15th year, and after tonight’s stunning performance by Noelia Fernández and Esther Aja in Cartas de las Golondrinas (Letters from the Swallows), I will absolutely return. Impressively written and directed by Blanca del Barrio, this original piece was creative, thought-provoking, emotional, and completely relatable.
History always repeats itself. We’ve heard this phrase time and time again. Cartas de las Golondrinas (Letters from the Swallows) explores the deep-rooted meaning of this phrase and what it means to be “American.” The story is based on personal correspondence between Spanish emigrants and their families from countries such as Argentina and Uruguay. Letters and papers are a prominent part of this performance piece that skillfully merges dance and acting in storytelling.
We enter Gunston Theater Two, and our eyes are immediately drawn onstage to where a long white dress, stretched out like a tight sheet, extends well onto the floor from the thin body of a gorgeous brunette with long wavy hair. Soon, images of life are projected onto it: rippling water, men and women of the early 1900s are dressed for travel with luggage in hand, waving goodbyes, kissing for the last time; a sweet little girl kisses her hands gently, releases them, and tiny, torn pieces of paper float out as birds flock around her. All the while, we are immersed in the sound of waves, instrumental music with a clean, pure voice singing soulfully as soft light illuminates the action. We have arrived.
The bright sound and music adaptation of Oscar Sisniega with the gorgeous lighting design by Pancho V. Saro and the crisp audiovisuals of BurbujaFilms are crucial in helping us as audience members understand where we are in the story. These aspects are crucial to the tone and expression of the piece, as the instrumental music comes in at times and swells and decrescendos during important moments in the piece, and the lighting changes from soft spot during letter-reading to bright light that illuminates the theater during a welcomed 4th wall surprise not to be spoiled by this writer.
This one-of-a-kind experience masterfully merges fluid, sharp, and rhythmic dance with acting in a black box setting. Vintage luggage and traditional costume pieces help the audience understand what time-period we’re in, with costume design by Noemí Fernández. The set design and construction by Juan I. Goitia is particularly clever, as four wooden tables with multi-functional parts are lithely morphed by Fernández and Aja into the specific places they are in throughout the play, such as the boat, sleeping quarters, a long table where they eat simply using spoons and plates and making the most rhythmic sounds of expression, their place of work, among others.
The use of levels keeps our interest and peaks the intensity in each scene, whether it’s with the performers using the floor, sitting at or on the tables, stacking them, and even standing on top of them. Executive direction by Esther Velategui gives us the overall feeling of where we are in time and space when all these elements work together in perfect harmony, as they do for the entire 75 minutes we’re engaged in this world.
Fernández and Aja are fully committed to each movement and action, and generate energy that radiates throughout the entire theater as the stories unfold through their eyes. They have excellent comedic timing as they giggle together and tease each other in one of my favorite scenes that takes place on the ship, where they are reading letters and making promises. A friendship is built and they look at the stars together, eat together, and gossip about their future in America.
The connection of these artists to each other is very strong, as they always moved with conviction during the choreography, suspending their bodies with strength and in perfect unison. They did a very fine job offering contrast for each other as well when necessary, as in the mother-daughter scenes. With the wide variety of characters they portray, these women really know how to communicate the important storyline and we as an audience want to be involved.
Cartas de las Golondrinas (Letters from the Swallows) is a powerful, uplifting performance piece about humanity that is not to be missed.

http://www.dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2012/10/26/cartas-de-las-golondrinas-letters-from-the-swallows-at-teatro-de-la-luna-by-colleeen-sproull/


DC Theatre Scene

Washington’s Liveliest Theatre Website
by Rosalind Lacy

The play's title is allegorical. Emigrants, like the migratory birds, the swallows, move away from their native birthplace and carry within a deep instinctive longing for their homeland. And immigration is an endless cycle because history repeats itself.

Spanish playwright Blanca del Barrio, who also directs Cartas de las Golondrinas (Letters From the Swallows), was an assistant to Marcel Marceau for 18 years. Influenced by her teacher, who was the master-of-mime-dramas, Del Barrio is a trail blazer. She combines a wildly imaginative staging style, a mix of mime and music with balletic dance sequences and visual media, to stage this surprisingly fresh, thank-you-letter to the world.

What is truly amazing is the way Del Barrio brings to life a random collection of letters relating to deeply personal experiences.  Letters, dating from the 1911 to 1939, tell stories about the hardships and triumphs of traveling from the old country to a new world, in countries like Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, or the United States.

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Jesucristo / Jesus Christ


DC Theatre Scene

Washington’s Liveliest Theatre Website
by Rosalind Lacy

“My Lord, why have you abandoned me?” cries Jesus, his last words from his heart that rock our souls without deadening our ears. Argentine actor, the gifted Mariano Mazzei as Jesus, looks directly at us from the cross, and into our souls with penetrating eyes. And in playwright Mariano Moro’s stunning poetic outpouring in Jesucristo, the character of Jesus transforms from a down-to-earth common man to an other worldly Christ whose ideas live on.

In last year’s 14th Teatro de la Luna International Hispanic Theater Festival, we remember Mazzei as an equally sensitive, chameleon-like performer as Lope de Vega, the gallant genius playwright of the Spanish Golden Age in Quien lo probo, lo sabe, also penned by Moro.

The impact of the Mazzei/Moro collaboration in Jesus Christ is intellectually overwhelming. Instead of hard pounding, drum-driven rock music that numbs your soul and alters your heart rhythms, such as in the musical Jesus Christ, Superstar, Mazzei talks through our eyes into our souls. Sometimes Mazzei speaks directly from the apron; sometimes mingling with the audience in friendly communion.

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Othello... Sniff


DC Theatre Scene

Washington’s Liveliest Theatre Website
by Rosalind Lacy

Teatro de la Luna launches its Fifteenth International Festival of Hispanic Theater with a wickedly cynical, needling, protest play that is a send-up. Dominican identity is dissected through the story of Shakespeare’s Othello.

What’s universal in Othello, Shakespeare’s play? Envy and revenge, the lust for power and penchant for violence, the capacity for destruction unleashed. From the Dominican Republic, a daring young actor/writer, Claudio Rivera in Otello…Sniff, exposes life as a descent into hell, as it is (or was) under a corrupt dictator. Rivera is a wonderful actor we have seen before in Our Lady of the Clouds (Nuestra Senora de las Nubes, in the 2009 La Luna International Festival. Stay tuned.)

Haunting wails are heard from off-stage, reminiscent of an Afro-West-Indian call and answer vocal, accompanied by syncopated Caribbean-Salsa music. Enter Iago as a red-nosed clown (Rivera), who peers out from behind an upstage black curtain. At first, he seems innocuous enough. Dressed in luminous, lavender-purple habit, Iago could be a monk. Light-of-foot, this clown creeps into a center stage spotlight to tell us, “I hate everyone.” Instantly we are together in hell, face-to-face with Iago, the supreme embodiment of evil in Shakespeare’s line-up of over-the-top villains. And through Rivera, also as narrator, he shape-shifts into Iago who assaults us with his mean-spirited, spiteful message for how he intends to destroy all illusion, all hope for utopia or a perfect society.

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The Examiner

Transforming 'Othello'

You don't need to know all the details of Shakespeare's "Othello" to enjoy "Otelo ... Sniff," the first offering of the 15th Festival Internacional de Teatro Hispano (International Festival of Hispanic Theater) at Teatro de la Luna. In fact, the clowning and use of puppets, props, dance and music makes the production tremendously accessible, so that even if you've never seen or read the original "Othello," this one would make sense.

Adapted and performed by Claudio Rivera, of Teatro Guloya in the Dominican Republic, "Otelo ... Sniff" distills Shakespeare's plot into a play that runs for slightly more than an hour. So quite a bit of telescoping and compressing has been done in Rivera's adaptation. Yet the essential story remains, of the Moor who is convinced, by the vicious Iago, that his bride has cheated on him.

Directed by Rivera and Viena Gonzalez, this Otelo is seen in a different perspective. He appears wearing a royal purple robe but wearing a red clown nose, so he is simultaneously Otelo and Otelo's clown. Immediately, it's clear that this will not be a conventional telling of the tale. In addition, Rivera plays all the other major roles: Desdemona, Iago, Brabantio and Cassio.

Rivera is a very physical actor, and there's barely a moment when he isn't in motion, gesturing with his arms, moving all around the performing space, gyrating to Latin and Afro-West Indian dance beats. His props include two tiny puppet heads attached to long scarves, blue for Desdemona and red for Otelo, and he speaks their conversations the way a child would invent conversations between dolls.

There's plenty of music in "Otelo," from classical to folk music to the kind of techno-pop you might hear in any club in the Dominican Republic. And though traces of Shakespeare's poetry come through here and there, this is definitely a contemporary take on the Othello story: At one point, Otelo calls Desdemona "little chick."

Monica Ferreras has created a simple set, with two tables to support Rivera's props, the most significant of which is Otelo's fantastic half-mask, designed by Ernesto Lopez. It's black, like a commedia dell'arte mask, and it gives Otelo a particularly menacing look.

The combination of Rivera's energy, his facility with the text and his ability to turn tragedy into tragicomedy makes this one of the most enjoyable productions Teatro de la Luna has presented in its 15 years of doing international festivals.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/transforming-othello/article/2510903


Washington Post

15th International Festival of Hispanic Theater:

‘Othello’ spoof kicks things off

by Celia Wren

October 17, 2012

Forget the green-eyed monster: Othello should look out for the guy with the red clown nose.

Dominican theater artist Claudio Rivera dons such a nozzle for “Otelo… Sniff,” his 70-minute solo show, which condenses and lampoons Shakespeare’s jealousy-themed tragedy.

Making goofy faces, larking about with props and frequently shattering the fourth wall — while remaining relatively faithful to the play’s contours and rhetorical highlights — Rivera seems to point out the absurdity inherent in possessive, vengeful, self-destructive and racially prejudiced behavior. He also spends a lot of time sticking his tongue out at the audience, eyes impishly alight, daring anyone to resist his irreverence.

Co-directed by Rivera and Viena Gonzalez, “Otelo ... Sniff” kicked off the 15th International Festival of Hispanic Theater at Arlington’s Gunston Arts Center last weekend. The festival, mounted by the local company Teatro de la Luna, runs through Nov. 17 and includes offerings from Latin America and Spain. (With the exception of one children’s show, performances are in Spanish, with simultaneous English translation provided via headset.)

The proceedings got off to a propitious start with four performances of Rivera’s spoof, which he wrote and began performing 11 years ago. Produced by the Dominican company Teatro Guloya, the show unfolded in front of two tables draped with colorful scarves. After peeking slyly around the edge of a backdrop, Rivera sauntered onstage, dressed in a purple satin toga and sporting the aforementioned clown nose. Explaining that he was Iago, speaking from beyond the grave, he proceeded to reenact the excitement, subterfuge and violence surrounding Othello and Desdemona’s romance.

As the actor channeled the voices of the ill-fated spouses and sundry other characters, he snatched up illustrative props from the tables. A pink cup represented ships sailing around Cyprus. A purple hat signaled the presence of Cassio. Two tiny dolls often stood in for Othello and Desdemona: Rivera wielded them like finger puppets, making light of the spouses’ billing and cooing. (Monica Ferreras designed the show’s set, Ernesto Lopez was mask designer and Josue Santana devised the sound.)

But the performer exploited his own physicality, too, executing the odd Afro-Caribbean-style dance move or striking exaggerated poses, like a one-legged balancing stance. He also interacted with audience members: On Saturday night, he ad-libbed banter with one person and polished another’s shoes.

Then, about three-quarters of the way through the performance, Rivera purported to collapse from exhaustion. Only after he had coaxed a theatergoer to supply him with an energy-boosting candy from her purse did he continue his act. Such whimsical moments added to the production’s humor without detracting from Shakespeare’s themes. Rather, by mocking both the Bard’s characters and human conduct in general, Rivera seemed to emphasize the cautionary tale at the heart of “Othello.”

In the coming weeks, the festival will present five more U.S. premieres, including Mariano Moro’s play “Jesucristo” (“Jesus Christ”), mounted by Argentina’s Compañia Los del Verso; Blanca del Barrio’s play “Cartas de las Golondrinas” (“Letters From the Swallows”), about emigration and immigration, staged by Spain’s Escena Miriñaque; and Maria Beatriz Vergara’s comedy “Aguita de Viejas” (“Fragrances From the Past”), produced by Ecuador’s Zero No Zero Teatro.

Wren is a freelance writer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/15th-international-festival-of-hispanic-theater-tis-both-here-and-there/2012/10/17/f96a848e-1869-11e2-a346-f24efc680b8d_story.html