Pillowman

Last night I saw a play in Spanish with the middle school theater director, Kaleroy, and one of her friends. After a brief stop for Latte ChocoCoco and a Donut Especial at Juan Valdez (ahhh... sorry Starbuck's, you lose) it was off to the theater. The walk was a surprisingly short four blocks.

Seeing a play in Spanish is was a good experience. The direction was very good, and I'm not just saying that because I met the director before the show. The costuming, character, and lighting all demonstrated the storyline very well. I was able to follow the plot of the first act and picked up the phrase "Habia una vez" (once upon a time). Naturally there was a lot I couldn't here due to vocabulary and pacing, but overall I recognized a lot more words and phrases without finding myself translating them into English quite as much as I had been.


The first act was 105 minutes. Whoa! But it was really good. I'm considering asking for the script to study Spanish and theater at the same time. The second act was another 55 minutes, so the play didn't quite live up to the pre-show promise of a 2 hr 25 minute running time. As so often happens, act two was more cerebral, in the sense that things were coming together so language was often more important than physicality. By this point my focus was pretty well fried. The second act was largely a total mystery, but the acting was enjoyable!


This production combined good interaction among the characters with storytelling. Culturally that helps because storytelling is pretty big here. I've heard there's more of it at a nearby park by the church, so that's going on my to do list. It's also possible the audiences here are less sophisticated in the limited sense of what they expect from (or appreciate in) theater.