Huggings (La Importancia del Abrazo)

The raw intensity of this opener for Teatro De La Luna’s Eleventh International Festival of Hispanic Theater comes straight at you from the cobbled streets and heartland of Peru, from effervescent fringe festivals and breaks beautifully with traditional theater.

The defiant male character, Sebastian (Jaime Lema), dressed in a trench coat, stands in the solitary confinement of a hot-white spotlight. “I am an artist,” he tells us, just as his entire family and father was. The mysterious Damabunda (Pilar Nuñez), dressed in slinky black with sparkling sequins and veils over her face, identifies herself as an artist as well. She waits for the time to come “…when man helps man,” she tells us cynically in a tone of despair. So how do two separate egos transcend their isolation and come together?

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AllArtsReview4U The finest reviews of the performing and visual arts from the DC and Baltimore area plus contributions from around the country and the world! La Mano (The Hand) by Bob Anthony The Spanish contribution this year for the festival is German Madrid's "La Mano" ("The Hand") that had the audience jumping at the end into a standing ovation. The applause was richly deserved since the show was a thriller...possibly the best of the eleven festivals...and Vincenc Miralles and German Madrid were superior in acting this convoluted black comedy with it twists and turns. Antonia Castillo gave fabulous direction supported by a weird audio-visual panoply and strange and classical sounds. The script could have been a combination of Hitchcock and the Portuguese writer, Saramago, as a wealthy man finds a stranger in his bathroom who makes a strange demand. There is a coy underlying message of one man's responsibility to another man...regardless of social or economic status. So we have 90 chilling minutes of suspicions, denials, and violence that keeps the audience enthralled until the final curtain.

DC Theatre Scene

Washington’s Liveliest Theatre Website La Mano (The Hand) by Rosalind Lacy

The Hand (La Mano), by German Madrid, Spain’s gift to Teatro de la Luna’s Eleventh International Festival of Hispanic Theater is a mordantly witty puzzler, the kind of breathtaking one-act that’s simply ingenious. All the ingredients for truly fine theater art are there: over-the-top acting of relevant, ethical issues with political overtones, good visual and musical effects, dynamic lighting contrasts,under a superb young director, named Antonia Castillo. Lights come up on a symmetrical set that could have been designed by the Belgian artist Rene Magritte or Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali, balanced by two benches with a white shower stall that doubles as a video screen upstage center for the visuals. Immediately we are mystified by a video of a doll’s face with big blue, staring and blinking eyes. When the doll speaks, telling us Fate wanted what we are about to see happen, weird feelings creep up our spines as we are cast into an atmosphere of magical realism. Read more Washington Post La Mano (The Hand) From Teatro de la Luna, A Gripping 'Mano' by Celia Wren Special to The Washington Post Wednesday, October 29, 2008; Page C05 Rarely does one encounter a story that might, with equal facility, illustrate a philosophy lecture or round out a horror anthology. But Spanish dramatist Germán Madrid has crafted just such a fable in "La Mano (The Hand)," a taut, seductively disconcerting one-act that ran for four performances last weekend at the Gunston Arts Center. The play -- part of the 11th International Festival of Hispanic Theater, hosted by Teatro de la Luna and continuing through Nov. 15 -- posed a few sly questions about justice, property rights and the common good. The work also boasted a plot that might deter you from entering your bathroom without a cellphone and a canister of Mace. A production of the Spanish troupe Carro de Baco (co-founded by Madrid and Antonia Castillo), "La Mano" unfolds amid sleek plumbing fixtures -- a toilet, a curtainless shower and a sink -- gleaming in front of a black wall. The set represents the washroom facilities in a house owned by a smug nabob, known only as the Man With the Light Bathrobe (played by Vicenç Miralles). One morning, at the end of a shower, this gentleman finds himself face to face with an intruder: the deceptively jovial Man With the Dark Bathrobe (Madrid). The improbably polite, farce-tinged chitchat between the two strangers gradually peels back to reveal a sinister undercurrent: Mr. Dark Bathrobe believes he has a claim to the left hand of Mr. Light Bathrobe -- and, as the confrontation turns ugly, it begins to seem that he just might have a case. Do two wrongs make a right? Is fairness the same as justice? And what exactly is in that flask from which the Man With the Light Bathrobe is imprudently swigging? With its fleeting meta-literary allusions, its understated fantasy and its clever fusion of ethical musings and thriller-style suspense, "La Mano" is a hand that delivers a theatrical wallop. As directed by Castillo, actors Miralles and Madrid maneuver smoothly along a spectrum from insouciance to menace to panic, now warbling "If I Were a Rich Man" in the shower (discreetly illumined by lighting designer Javier Muñoz), now groveling in anguish on the floor. It is a two-dimensional performer, however, who supplies the show's most spine-tingling moments: Now and then, an onstage screen lights up with a creepy baby-doll face, whose lips move in sync with voice-overs of metaphysics-dosed lyricism. (Juanjo Marín designed the show's photography.) Alas, "La Mano" has closed, but the festival's remaining offerings sound potentially intriguing. Starting tomorrow, a Uruguayan comedy, "Más Loca que una Cabra (As Crazy as a Loon)," makes its U.S. premiere. Matinees of a Paraguayan family show, "Las Asombrosas Aventuras de Robinson Crusoe (The Amazing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe)," will be performed Saturday and Nov. 8. An Argentine play with a title that seems timely -- "Subió la Carne (Meat Prices Rising)" -- runs Nov. 6-8, and the festival wraps with a Spanish-language production of John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt" from Venezuela. © Copyright 1996-2008 The Washington Post Company AllArtsReview4U The finest reviews of the performing and visual arts from the DC and Baltimore area plus contributions from around the country and the world! Subió la Carne (Meat Prices Rising) by Bob Anthony The Argentine contribution neatly follows "As Crazy as a Loon" with two "wild and funny guys"...Claudio Pazos and Francisco Pesqueira...in "Meat Prices Rising". It got a huge continuing laughter from the mostly hispanic audience so the few non-Spanish speakers using head sets sometimes missed the laugh lines which came fast and furious. The top skit was the 400 plus year old woman whose baby finally decides to deliver himself...with a guitar...and ready to become a rock star with his fantastic high pitched singing voice. It was filled with wonderful irreverent humor as it broke down social and political barriers. And the actors provided some male strip teasing as well. The two actors did lots of cross dressing to develop fascinating characters...they needed two dressers off stage to assist. Yes, bellies are still aching after enjoying yesterday's performance. DC Theatre Scene Washington’s Liveliest Theatre Website Subió la Carne (Meat Prices Rising) by Rosalind Lacy Meat Prices Rising (Subió la Carne) has an enticing, juicy title. This loosely constructed cabaret act seems to be saying: okay, the economy is shot to hell, so let’s make fun of everything sacred. And that’s exactly what two tremendously talented Argentine actors, Claudio Pazos and Francisco Pesqueira, and their director, Carlo Argento, do as they impersonate a multitude of characters, sing with operatic voices at highpoint moments, and make us laugh at such fears as a failing economy or runaway inflation. (Argentina is well-known for government debt and inflations that resulted in 2001 food riots.) Onstage stands a clothes rack that prepares us for the miraculous whirlwind of costumes changes and character transformations ahead. Here’s the setup stated in the program: “Do what you do…you’ll be criticized. So do what you want. We’re all meat for the critic.” A series of slap-stick cabaret vignettes follow: Society all around us is the meat. All is ripe for ridicule. Read more AllArtsReview4U The finest reviews of the performing and visual arts from the DC and Baltimore area plus contributions from around the country and the world! La Duda (Doubt) by Bob Anthony It was so wonderful to see and hear a production of Shanley's "Doubt" performed in Spanish and the Venezuelan company at Teatro de la Luna was superb...the best in this year's festival. Elba Escobar proved to be a total equal to American actresses (this critic has seen it done twice in English) and she added a verbal viciousness that was so dramatically appropriate even though unlikely for a religious. Handsome Rafael Romero gave a complete and most satisfactory reading of a affable priest who is being attacked for a crime he did not commit (?). Maria Carolina Semprum was outstanding as Sister Josefina who inappropriately made inferences about people's behaviors so unusual for such a lovely angelic blue-eyed nun. The tops goes to Beatriz Vasquez as the mother... who was slatternly dressed but world wise about immorality... who challenges the religious and the church regarding their moral high horses while the church rots away in its own lasciviousness. It was a powerful production tenderly directed by Matilda Corral. This production could easily win another "Tony" award if it were on Broadway! DC Theatre Scene Washington’s Liveliest Theatre Website La Duda (Doubt) by Rosalind Lacy What universalizes John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt (La Duda), about a priest suspected of pedophilia, are the adaptations director Matilda Corral makes. We are in a Catholic school in Venezuela instead of an Irish-Italian school in Northeastern United States. But the explosive issues and controversy are the same. When in doubt, is it wise to take action? Corral establishes a sense of unease immediately. A screen projection of a stained glass window displays a stern Madonna with staring eyes. Discordant electronic music rains down from everywhere. The plot is simple but the characters are complex. The four characters come across as distinctly individualized, conflicted human beings depicted by actors who are uniformly excellent and profoundly moving. Sister Eloisa (Elba Escobar) runs her school with an iron fist. Her values and style are clearly those of the past generation. When an inexperienced nun and teacher, Sister Josefina (Maria Carolina Semprum) innocently reports that one of her male students, after a private meeting with the charismatic assistant pastor Father Luis (Raphael Romero) in the rectory, came to class with alcohol on his breath, Sister Eloisa concludes the priest has molested the boy. She bases her suspicions on the circumstantial evidence that the priest grows his nails long and is, in her opinion, overly friendly with the male students. Surprisingly, the boy’s mother, Mrs. Blanco (Beatriz Vasquez) argues in favor of the relationship. Conflicting perceptions lead up to Father Luis’ resignation, leaving the characters and us with lingering questions about justice and the truth of what really happened. Read more