At least something is being done!

Last night's performance was not what I was hoping to see in an international theater festival. My mixed emotions about the piece still have yet to settle. Let me give you the set up:

Teatro Dallas and some pretty awesome grants (it seems like) has made this festival possible,hosting acts from the U.S. Mexico and Venezuela. I was looking forward to some innovative work to shake down Texas. Cora Cardona, artistic director of Teatro Dallas, is an international artist and just had a theater school named after her in Venezuela. Her partner in crime, Ygor Zamora, a man with outstanding credits, is conducting a physical theater workshop that will culminate in a performance at the end of the festival. Sounds interesting right?

I went with three good friends: Artistic Director of Cara Mia, David Lozano (a brilliant actor and clown), and his tremendously talented Mexican actress and better half, Frida. Also my good friend Darryl,Confustron DJ extrordinaire,was brave enough to accompany me.

Well, the festival opener was overall disappointing, but the attempt and spirit of the piece merited applause. Lilian Tapia, actress(with a very impressive bio), has trained with the "masters" of Mexican theater. The show was a cabaret, opening with a sexy salsa couple moving in ways us normal folk would only find in our own minds while swirling in a drunken rhumba. Beautiful chemistry, clean footwork...hot. Then comes Lilian Tapia shaking audience members hands interrupting the dancers to take over the stage. She is a bawdy gal, busty, thick, older, but with a sultry confidence that would make a white man shake and Mexican man hungry. She opens with the rhythms and comic style of raunchy comedy shows seen on Spanish TV. It was refreshing to see a female with a sharp tongue and spirit, a formidable contender in a mostly male dominated Latino comic ring.

Two minutes into her opening, I realized I was going to have to play double time. Darryl needed some assistance which developed into a crick in my neck from whispering English without being annoying. The jokes were very colloquial and were hard to translate sometimes missing my POCHA mind.

"De Amor Y de Mordidas"

Lilian's comedy discussed the battle of the sexes: why men are they way they are and why women do what they do. An exploration of the pain in loves and expectations. Typical, easy I thought- with cheap jabs at the sexes. She took us through realms where she thought the answer might be. She blamed it on God, on science, women themselves, and even the Spanish conquest (an easy segway to a flamenco castanet number that was too long and a little painful to watch). She plowed through with consistent energy and a great voice. I felt encouragement when the dancers where brought on to enhance her philosophy on the difference of eroticism and sex, but it was murdered when she went on to agonize in her final cry to understand the male unresponsiveness to romance in a poem that shredded the show to its lowest Spanish soap form. Then went to the mirror for a "it's me..I need to look inside myself" glory moment.

I will say, the energy did give me a little shiver because of its bravado and courage in her last line, "I have to love myself before I can truly love another" (damn it- it struck a cord). She crawled through the stages of love: the carnal, the superficial, the masochist, the conditional, the manipulative...realizing she really never new true love. That moment was honest.

Later during discussion time..
Frida found the show disappointing. Her logic: This is type of comedy is already saturating TV. For an international theater festival this was not something worthwhile. There is place for blue humor, for her, theater should stay away from what can be too easy. David, enjoyed the spirit and courage of a feisty one-woman show at her age. Darryl, well...didn't get his culture fix. Me- mixed. I wished to see her truly commit to her darker moments so the light would pierce through, Leguizamo style.

I want to support full Spanish presentations, but no warning was given. I felt bad for the some of the patrons who had to walk out. How do you not alienate an audience without compromising some artistic integrity? I like a challenge. As an artist, I tend to want to challenge an audience, but I have seen how self-indulgent that can get. It also made me question how much to trust a laundry list of accomplishments on paper. Proof is in the walk. At least this art has spurred a discussion. We ask questions, we discover more of ourselves with what we find is worth absorbing, and hopefully ask why.

Next week: Mujer on the Border Marta Aura (Frida mentioned she was quite an actress)
A piece on the life of women whose men leave for the states to work in order to support their families. Whole pueblos left to women and how do they cope? That sounds more along my flow.
Stay tuned.