By D. J. R. Bruckner. The New York Times. May 10, 2000
The valedictory tone of "El Baile, o el Collar" ("The Dance or the Necklace") denotes something more than the personal mood of the playwright, Cuba's Abelardo Estorino. Since the dominating character, Nina, is 75, Mr. Estorino's age, it is tempting to see her struggle with
mortality as individual combat against time.
But by the end of this 90-minute dramatic meditation at Repertorio Español it is clear that Mr. Estorino is addressing his countrymen, no matter what their political commitment. A great change is coming to Cuba -- Fidel Castro isn't far from Nina's age -- and the remnants of its many
pasts, accumulated over 500 years, could be debilitatingly delusional.
That Mr. Estorino manages to invite such reflections without mentioning them owes much to his love of language that rings with allusions. But no one in Cuba, where he is a much-honored writer, would miss the intention.
Nina lingers in a vast house denuded of furniture but still a place of grandeur. To survive, she faces the necessity of selling a pearl necklace passed down through three generations. She speaks of a mad sister and an old male servant who live with her. But the only other characters we see and
hear are ghosts of a sort: her dead husband, Conrado, and Fabrizio, a young man she danced with one evening more than 50 years ago and fell in love with. Other people, including her children, who long ago immigrated to the United States, turn up only in letters or photographs, shadows in her memory.
Soon enough the viewer is invited to wonder whether any, or which, of these people are real. The three who appear onstage seem to be inventing one another as they go along, and they occasionally stop to analyze the impression one of the others might be making on the audience or to dispute how
far along they are in the plot and how the play might end. The device is an effective way of opening the play up far beyond the haunted walls of Nina's house; at times it even becomes a biting commentary on themes that any reader of Latin American literature will recognize.
In this production -- performed in Spanish, with simultaneous translation available -- Adria Santana, a popular Cuban actress, is a captivating Nina. She is hesitant, fearful but powerful in her old age and radiant in her youth. (Ms. Santana has magical ways of adding and shedding years, not
through makeup or costumes but by using a repertory of gesture and movement that reveals formidable classical training.)
Ricardo Barber, a veteran of two decades and scores of roles at Repertorio Español, is a fitting match as her husband -- affectionately mocking, incurably jealous of the young man who enchanted her, bitter about the revolution that he says took away his desire to live, but ironic,
philosophical and humorous about his fate.
At first glance it seems that Juan Sebastián Aragón as Nina's youthful infatuation faces impossible competition from these two. But Mr. Aragón makes the reasonable assumption that all ghosts are ageless and turns the callow behavior of Fabrizio (asked how he got this
pretentious name, he blandly replies that he read Stendahl's "Rouge et Noir") into an arresting search for truth.
"We already did the dance scene," he tells the aged Nina. "What else is there?"
The answer comes a little later when she says, sighing, "Oh, to think I have no one to say good night to," but her eyes and the squaring of her shoulders say, "Feel sorry for yourselves; I am alive, vibrantly lucid." And her pretended lament leaves one comforted precisely
because it reminds one of Fabrizio's puzzlement 50 years earlier, when she asked him to drop his mask of charm to reveal himself and he could only pause in the voluptuous swirls of his dance to say, "Everyone else is real, with real lives and plans."
The three actors make it appear that Mr. Estorino, who directs his own play, lets them do whatever they like, the most resounding form of applause a cast can give.
EL BAILE O EL COLLAR
The Dance, or the Necklace
Written and directed by Abelardo Estorino; sets by Ismael Gomez; lighting by Robert Weber Federico; sound by Jorge Garc ia Porrua; assistant director, Mr. G omez; translation by Ileana Fuentes; production supervisor, Gerardo Gudino. Presented by Repertorio Espanol, Gilberto Zald ivar, executive
producer; Ren e Buch, artistic director; Mr. Federico, associate artist producer. At the Gramercy Arts Theater, 138 East 27th Street, Gramcery.
WITH: Adria Santana (Nina), Ricardo Barber (Conrado) and Juan Sebasti an Arag on (Fabrizio).
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company |