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A CurtainUp Review
Roosters
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Kill. You're my son. Make me proud.—
Gallo We got bacteria out here more productive than you.— Hector Angels do not fart. They don't have a digestive system.— Angela |
Joe Guzman as Gallo and anjoli Santiago as Angela
(Photo by Cory Frisco) |
The story is set in a Latino community in the southwest, maybe New Mexico. By the end of act one things look promising as two acrobatic dancers, costumed as red roosters, begin to perform. The play's obvious symbolism carries it far. You can get a lot of mileage out of its single metaphor, cockfighting, but maybe not two hours worth.
review continues below
Joe Guzmán is threatening and strong in the role of Gallo, a breeder of champion fighting cocks, who returns to his family and his home. Big, rough and murderous, he has been in prison for seven years for killing the son of a rival breeder. Now intent upon ruling his roost and training fighting birds, he's a physical threat to everyone. It soon becomes clear that other than machismo, cockfighting is Gallo's sole interest in life.
Oscar Dubón plays Hector, the son, soft-edged. Hector supports the family by working in the fields while his father is in prison. Gallo rejects the idea of his son doing laborer's work. True to form, he expresses his displeasure in terms of cockfighting: "They have to respect us to respect our roosters." Above all Gallo resents the fact that his son has inherited Zapata, a star fighting cock, from his grandfather. To his mind, the rooster is rightfully his own. Hector's father is all about virility and he projects his masculinity and worth onto the bird of contention, Zapata. Hector says papa only cares about the rooster, "that's his son." To Gallo the rooster is his legacy as a breeder. To Hector, the only one with serious ambitions to escape their dead-end life, the bird represents financial hope and maybe a way out.
A neglected daughter, Angela, fifteen, clings fast to her rituals, religious dolls, and childhood, but is unable to escape her maturing body, though she prays to her deaf saints to give her back her small butt. Angela wears wings and writes epitaphs for her family, which she places in a miniature graveyard-shrine. In this troubled play, where characters are poetic but not too deep, Angela is the exception. She has depth but is more than a little nuts. Young Anjoli Santiago does more than justice to the challenging role.
Catalina Medina plays the mother with skill and restraint. Juana's principal activity is stoic waiting. Submissive, she feels old before her time. Upon her husband Gallo's return, we see Juana briefly basking in his temporary love. When she finally speaks up, however, what she says is disappointingly trivial for a sympathetic character. Rather than express her longing for Gallo to be a husband and a father, she carries on about how much she wants to go dancing.
Juana's sister, Chata, lives with the family. Ample of charms, she spills fruitfully from whatever she wears. She is, we are told, a whore of Babylonian proportions. Melissa Sabater brings liveliness to the role. The part is played almost exclusively for comedy, however, and while it is very funny, there's a lost opportunity for a deeper seductiveness. The text and subtext evoke dripping sexuality. But while her words speak of attraction— how she knows Hector watches her, and she seems to like it— we see no hot interest in their behavior. He barely notices her and she doesn't really seem interested either. It would be more satisfying if a layer of funny were played on top of a base of seriously provocative, and aimed at Hector. The son's amiable friend, Adan, (Emmanuel Carrera, who is also a musician) just wants to get along with this unbalanced family, and maybe gain the attention of Juana. But there's no simmering passion here either. Chata and Adan supply much of the comedy, as does Angela --except she's really weird.
The characters often say unlikely things and in an unlikely, literary way. Farm laborers, cock fighters, homebound rural women, all earthy types, speak poetically as they talk of the brittle bones of dead animals or say things like, "The crowd was a monster made up of individual human beings … " A spiritual subconscious stream runs though the work, and the linguistic shifts from naturalistic to poetic elevate the ordinary. The play's language is its strength. Its claim to magical realism lies in its language far more than in its events.
Matt Saunders' set shows the front of a house located in some hot corner of the southwest. Its wall has an appealing aqua colorwash, and there's faded painted wood furniture on the porch. A circle in front of the house, like a thrust stage, serves as front yard and a fantasy cockfight ring. Above, a backdrop of mountains is seen as negative space-- jagged gaps in a sky pinned on black curtains. Finally, and questionably, a pair of silver wings hangs suspended high above the porch. It's all atmospheric: Christopher Coluccci's mix of cock noises, sounds, songs, percussion, and music complements the activities.
Confrontations are anticipated and they come in the form of symbolic fights and "actual" fights. Capoeira, a Brazilian form of martial art, as performed here by fantasy roosters, is a poetic demonstration rather than the dangerous, blazing contest it needs to be in order to make sense in this play. As far as an actual fight goes, the ominous tension built up from the start pretty much peters out. Battles of words turn out to be more threatening than their eventual physical realization, which is neither close nor visceral. Fast and furious combat would have pushed the play into a needed gritty area, offsetting the fine poetry and delivering on the threat that has hung in the air.
Finally, the play takes a leap that doesn't work, either from the standpoint of what the characters as we have known them want, or in terms of what has been established as within the realm of even magical possibility. The groundwork for a sudden flight into true magical realism is not in place. A satisfying conclusion is derailed as dots are missing in the connect-the-dots of character, metaphor, and the established boundaries of what's possible. Consequently the story loses clarity. Added to this apparent flaw in the writing is the confusing staging at the end as the dancing cocks appear, in white this time, and the muddled events that quickly transpire confound more than they illuminate.
Even with a very good cast gathered by Theatre Exile, and a play that's winningly atmospheric and full of promise in a number of ways, Roosters ultimately doesn't deliver. While its language is inspired, its characters mostly are thin. The sexuality it only refers to is so submerged it doesn't break the surface, and the fighting, so close to the heart of the play, needs fire and savagery. Finally the play itself, and thus the production, is not lucid through to the end.
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Roosters
by Milcha Sanchez-Scott Directed by Deborah Block Cast: Joe Guzmán, Oscar Dubón, Anjoli Santiago, Catalina Medina, Melissa Sabater, Emmanuel Carrera, Chris Devaney (capoeira) Peter M. Midgley DiGeronimo (capoeira) Scenic Design: Matt Saunders Costume Design: Hiroshi Iwasaki Sound Design: Christopher Colucci Lighting Design: Paul Moffitt Theatre Exile at Christ Church Neighborhood House, N. American St. Running time 2 hours, with one intermission 01/31/08 – 02/ 24/08 Opening 02/06 Reviewed by Kathryn Osenlund based on 02/06 performance |
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