Washington Post Staff Writers. Wednesday, May 3, 2000; Page A05
Congress Might Not Hold Hearings on Seizure of Elian
By Juliet Eilperin and Helen Dewar.
Enthusiasm for hearings into the Elian Gonzalez raid is waning on Capitol Hill, with some Republican leaders indicating yesterday that they might not be held.
"I don't know whether or not a hearing will be necessary," House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) said yesterday at his weekly briefing, adding that such sessions have not produced answers from the administration in the past. "I think we need to make some inquiries and
see where we can go on that and just see where it takes us."
Congressional leaders, including House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), had initially suggested holding hearings to investigate whether federal authorities erred in using force when taking the 6-year-old Cuban boy from his relatives' Miami home last month in order to reunite him with his
father.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) is conducting "a preliminary inquiry" into the matter, and top Republicans said they will wait and see what information the panel obtains before moving forward.
"I don't necessarily think you have to have hearings to ask whether the Constitution was upheld, or whether any laws were broken," said Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts (Okla.).
Some Senate Republicans are also said hearings appear less likely than they did last week after the raid. Policy Committee Chairman Larry E. Craig (Idaho), who supports hearings, said he believes there is a "strong likelihood" they will not occur. "Sometimes around here we don't
lead, we follow, and on this we may follow," he said.
With a nudge from Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) had scheduled a session for today, only to postpone it until the Justice Department turns over several documents that he requested on the raid.
Hatch has since said he would review the documents before deciding whether to go ahead with hearings. He issued a statement yesterday that he had still not received all the documents, noting Attorney General Janet Reno had made time to appear on television programs such as Oprah Winfrey's talk
show.
Hatch suggested sarcastically that the Justice Department is "more interested with meeting the demands of the media and other public relations avenues than it is in cooperating with congressional oversight."
Lott told reporters he is still "very enthused" about hearings but said that others, including the judiciary panel, would "make the final call on this." In any case, Lott said, the hearings should be closely focused on the government's action, including whether force was
necessary, and not last beyond a day or two. "I still think we have a responsibility there and we should fulfill our responsibility, find out the answers as best we can, although it may be hard with this administration, and move on," he said.
At GALA Hispanic, Castro's Cuba, Writ Small
By Nelson Pressley. Special to The Washington Post. Wednesday, May 3, 2000; Page C11
The three characters of the intense "La Noche de los Asesinos (Night of the Assassins)" wander casually onto the stage at GALA Hispanic Theatre, which has been stripped bare to the brick back wall by director and set designer Gabriel Garcia. They begin to place props, change clothes
and find heightened levels of concentration, the better to play the strange, incendiary action they are about to perform.
That action, it turns out, is a rehearsal for a revolution. The bare stage is actually the family basement; the three characters are siblings, and they hate their oppressive parents so much that they would kill them if they only had the nerve. That's what the rehearsal, which is filled with
role-playing and gamesmanship, is all about: trying to work up the nerve.
The play was written in 1964 by Cuban playwright Jose Triana, and the anti-Castro allegory is abundantly clear. Yet for long stretches, you would be forgiven for thinking that these three are merely angry adolescents chafing at the usual parental restraints, even though the youngest is 20.
(Costume designer Alessandra D'Ovidio puts Cuca, the older sister, in short overalls, encouraging you to see her as more of a girl than a woman.) The three whine and rail about their parents' failings and abuses; Beba (Cynthia Benjamin), the youngest, impersonates their father by slipping into
oversize shoes and swinging the buckle end of a belt, while Cuca (Broselianda Hernandez) brays as their mother.
This comes with plenty of internal bickering, especially between the vengeful, bloodthirsty Lalo (Harold Ruiz) and Cuca, who is less certain about her own murderous resolve. What's intriguing about Triana's play--and this lucid performance of it--is the way the siblings slip in and out of
imagined scenarios, and a multiplicity of roles, and the "real" present moment, sometimes breaking character to goad one another to higher, more bitter performances.
Despite the fact that the audience's sensitivity to Cuban issues is certainly at a post-Cold War high just now, thanks to the Elian Gonzalez saga, "Night of the Assassins" doesn't come across as terribly political in the first act. The list of grievances is so familial that even lines
like Lalo's "This basement is my world" don't necessarily spur you to see this as a microcosm. The complaining even threatens to become trivial at times.
But the play remains watchable thanks to the actors' energetic fury, the sheer novelty of the game they're playing, and a series of terrific stage pictures. At one point a long red bolt of cloth (which is put to abundant use throughout the show) is draped over the large swing that hangs over the
stage; the cloth serves as a graceful awning as Lalo impersonates his mother, pregnant as she walks down the aisle for her wedding, wanting, he says, to abort the baby on the spot. A moment later, a properly motivated Lalo stands on the swing, a large kitchen knife in hand, as the swing is
menacingly raised toward the ground floor, where the parents are. It's a potent sight, though it seems more like personal revenge than political rebellion.
After intermission, what were hints of political engagement become explicit. The basement begins to seem like a holding cell; the swinging utility lamps (the deliberately dim lighting design is by Ayun Fedorcha) look perfect for temporarily blinding a prisoner during an interrogation. A mock
trial ensues, with Lalo defending his murderous actions (opposite Hernandez's tongue-rolling prosecutor) by saying simply that he wants to live, and that parental authority prevented it. Nothing subtle there.
Garcia keeps his actors' ferocity high, and the show has a fascinating visual and aural energy (the knife is as charged as a loaded gun, and the actors shrewdly play the wild dynamics in the dialogue). Ruiz gives a sometimes strikingly physical performance; at one point, he suspends himself
upside down, like a gymnast, on the ropes that hold the swing. Hernandez excels at wrenching dramatic moments, though she also gets laughs as the prosecutor. Benjamin is a full partner here, by turns imaginatively shrill, playful and apprehensive.
In the end, the performance (in Spanish, with a good simultaneous English translation available on headsets) outstrips the play by a long shot. It's worth noting that at about the same time Triana was writing this, American playwright Terrence McNally was writing his own
angry-rebels-in-the-basement drama, "And Things That Go Bump in the Night," a play that similarly reaches hysterical levels as its characters rant on and on. Luckily, this is a puny genre; it's an awkward way to express things. But as Garcia and his cast prove, it can be a showy way to
spend two hours.
La Noche de los Asesinos (Night of the Assassins), by Jose Triana. Directed by Gabriel Garcia. Through May 28 at GALA Hispanic Theatre, 1625 Park Rd. NW. Call 202-234-7174.
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