Premeditation

Reviewed by Paul Birchall

Director Jose Luis Valenzuela’s whimsically energetic staging of author Evelina Fernandez’s noir romantic comedy (well, it’s sort of a comedy) is not — precisely speaking — a case of slapping lipstick on a pig. It’s clear, however, after a few moments, that the playfulness and genial charm of Valenzuela’s quirky direction is often used to disguise the play’s narrative slightness.

After a hilarious pas de quatre in which each member of the cast capers madly around the stage with piece of furniture (ably choreographed by Urbanie Lucero), the show settles into a tale of two couples attempting to reignite the fading sparks of their middle-aged marriages. Wife Esmeralda (playwright Fernandez) picks a nagging fight with her oblivious college professor husband Fernando (Geoffrey Rivas) – though the clear cause of the fracas is that he takes her for granted. 

After Fernando leaves for work, Esmeralda calls brusque, handsome Mauricio (Sal Lopez), and the two arrange an illicit liaison at a nearby hotel.  The reason?  Not an extramarital affair by any means:  Mauricio is a hit man and Esmeralda has hired him to off her negligent hubby once and for all.  Mauricio comes across all bloodthirsty and cruel – but when he hears the real reasons Esmeralda wants her husband dead (because he doesn’t pick up his underwear after a shower), even he has second thoughts about the assignment.  Meanwhile, a chance encounter links up Fernando and Mauricio’s long-suffering wife Lydia (Lucy Rodriguez), who is as peeved at her mate as Esmeralda is with hers.

Valenzuela sets the pacing to boost irony and gentle humor, which in turn artfully develops the mix of compassion and ridicule we’re supposed to feel for the characters.  And the stage crackles with eye-catching conceits:  When a character expresses suspicion of the motivations and supposed treachery of his or her mate, Pablo Santiago’s lusciously atmospheric videos, played on the stage wall, show the accused behaving just as wickedly as the imaginer might fear.  Seemingly irrelevant sound effects – a character lighting a cigarette or knocking on a hotel room door – are amplified to generate a faux suspense, all to wonderful comic effect, satirizing the production’s noir artifice.

Ultimately, the trappings fail due to the lackluster writing, which keeps placing the characters repeatedly in similar situations, to the point of being numbing.  The dialogue often lacks precision – many exchanges could be cut with no attendant loss to the work’s meaning.  The central premise doesn’t support close scrutiny, even through the most charitable of “magic realism” lenses. It’s absurd that a woman would hire a hit man for the reasons Esmeralda does.  And even if we accept that basic element of the premise, it’s ridiculous that the hit man would refuse the gig based on the reasons he does.  Later, when Lydia and Fernando crash the scene, the confrontations, break-ups, and reconciliations all feel under-motivated – the result of the characters being defined by little more than their relationship to each other and by the 1940s-style “victory roll” hairstyles worn by the ladies.  Kudos are certainly due to Naila Aladdin Sanders’ luscious 1940s-style gowns and (for the men) Zoot Suit outfits.  However, the noir 1940s trappings are a little anachronistic, considering characters make use of cell phones and GPS navigators with abandon throughout. 

Performances, also, are disappointingly one note – Fernandez’s Esmeralda is so shrill, she’s unable to muster the vulnerability necessary for the play’s later events.  Lopez’s unworldly, brutish hit man has more depth, but it’s hard to see him as the romantic figure the writing tries to convince us of. 

Los Angeles Theater Center, 515 S. Spring Street, Downtown; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. through May 11. (866) 811-4111, https://www.thelatc.org