Revoluciones

Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Latino Theatre Company in association with Mexico’s Foro Shakespeare
Through May 12

Too often idealists who lead revolts against fascist regimes end up assuming the same dictatorial and bloodthirsty predilections as their enemies.

Elaine Romero’s 50-minute, three-character play pivots around this bitter paradox. It’s a poetical narrative that takes place in the past and in the afterlife, and it turns on a face-off between Pilar (Corina Vela), a bereft impassioned woman mourning her dead son; and Oscar (Hasiff Fadul), her former lover who, 30 years prior, had been a revolutionary but now heads the current totalitarian regime. With order in the state being his priority, Oscar had executed a charismatic young man who’d been protesting his government’s repression.

Directed by Bruno Bichir at Los Angeles Theatre Center, the play hews to the style of a classical tragedy, in that individual characters and plot points are given shorter shrift than the principles and perspectives the characters give voice to. The oratorical language is embellished by choreographed movement (Olga Sokolova) on the part of the actors, including Javier Balderas who plays son Miguel, a representative of betrayed youth. His role is smaller than the other two, but he is frequently present in the background, gesticulating and moving about while Oscar and Pilar are tearing at each other.

All three performers — but especially the pivotal Vela with her reservoir of vocal power — display presence and skill, but they are given little opportunity to humanize their roles or redesign them as something other than vehicles for the play’s larger message about the ubiquity of brutality and betrayal. This theme is driven home to the audience in a grim, single-note fashion. Sokolova’s choreography often appears arbitrary; except in scenes where Pilar and Oscar are glimpsed as young lovers, it seems tacked on and neither central nor necessary to the text’s meaning.

Naomi González’s minimalist set design is notable for the round bundles wrapped in dark red cloth that suspend from the ceiling. They suggest the severed heads of murdered dissidents and add a creepy and telling detail to a dark story.

Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., Downtown L.A.; Thurs.-Sun., 8 p.m.; Sun., 4 p.m.; through May 12. (866) 811-4111 or www.thelatc.org/. Running time: approximately 50 minutes with no intermission.