[ssba]
Ay, Carmela!
Reviewed by Lovell Estell III
At the Hudson Mainstage Theatre
Through December 13
RECOMMENDED:
For the husband and wife vaudeville team Paulino (Alejandro Furth) and Carmela (Eloisa Maturén), the show really must go on.
It is the time of Spain’s bloody Civil War (a small screen flashes graphic newsreel footage of the conflict before the play starts), and the pair must put on a “command,” performance for some of Franco’s officers and an unfortunate group of prisoners slated for the firing squad.
Paulino doesn’t like to make waves; he is a man, as Carmela says, ”who would sell his soul to eat.”
Carmela is cut from a different cloth however, and her outspoken show of support for the prisoners at show’s end proves a fatal act of defiance and courage.
Written by noted Spanish playwright José Sanchis Sinisterra, and directed by Alberto Arvelo, this two character, two-act play is an uneasy fusion of comedy and drama. It solidly entertains, despite the laborious adaptation by Nilo Cruz and Catalina Botello that doesn’t quite do justice to the author’s rich poetical style.
As the play opens, Carmela is already dead, as are the prisoners. A despairing Paulino is comforting himself with memories and drink when he is jarred by Carmela’s eerie appearance from the afterlife, which she blithely describes as a sort of purgatory.
From there the narrative shifts back and forth in time, and we learn, among other things, the particulars leading up to Carmela’s last night on earth, which bounces between the comic and the absurd and supernatural.
Ay, Carmela! (the play’s title is that of a popular song of the Republican troops during the war), touches on the grand familiar themes of love, mortality and the horrors of war, but does so in a manner that isn’t unbearably heavy-handed or preachy.
Maturen and Furth share an invigorating chemistry that they project while performing with uncanny ease and skill under Arvelo’s smart direction. Maturén’s Flamenco dancing is superb.
Other elements are equally impressive. LA Philharmonic Music &Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel steps up with a musical score that is both haunting and beautiful. Cris Moscatiello crafts a highly effective sound design. The inimitable Frank Gehry furnishes a deceptively simple but effective scenic design, whose most striking feature is a mural that crowns the outer stage and depicts the chaos of war.
Hudson Mainstage Theater, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 3 p.m., through Dec. 13. (323) 960-7792 or www.plays411.com/aycarmela. Running time: 2 hours with intermission
