How could one not run to a show that, in this day, puts together a story that purposes to go to the heart of a topic that raises both volatile antipathy and gut wrenching emotions of compassion? In addition to setting the new work at our southern border “wall,” new Artistic Director of In Series Timothy Nelson has made a strong commitment in his first season to reach out into the community and across languages, cultures, and ages. So he is to be championed for his vision and for forging partnerships with Corazón Folklórico DC, a Mexican dance troupe, and Latin America Youth Center for La Paloma at the Wall.
I went to this new production with great expectations. I like Nelson. He’s smart, energetic, and his vision of reinventing opera, challenging the status quo about whom opera “and more” is for, is much to my liking. I have admired In Series’ mission and hope Nelson’s injection of youthful vitality will help this theater do great things in the future and attract new audiences. (GALA Theatre where the company was performing was packed opening night, so hopes are high.)
The piece, like hell, is paved with good intentions. So what happened? Well, let’s start with the form itself.
Some carry the tradition of zarzuela, a music-theatre form likely born during the Baroque period of Spain then somewhat reinvented during the 19th century, like the Holy Grail. Others have spoken of it as something that contagiously spread, suggesting something more like the plague, to the colonies as far flung as Cuba and the Philippines which naturalized it into their own homegrown forms. Zarzuela combines back-to-back dramatic spoken scenes with music, both operatic and popular ditties, as well as dance. Orchestral ensembles were always part of the mix. But the mix often has this clunky museum feel – like waking into a diorama whose parts suddenly mechanically come to life.
Spanish conductor and composer Tomás Bretón wrote the original score for La Paloma de la Verbena in 1894 from a libretto by Ricardo de la Vega, and it became a hit. Although it remains a favorite of the genre, the plot feels contrived and overly complicated – pushing into melodrama. (It takes three pages to give you the ins and outs and the various subplots of this version, if that gives you an idea.)
Writer Anna Deeny Morales gives the work a facelift by setting the action at the U.S.-Mexico border between San Diego and Tijuana. She begins with a border patrol officer interviewing Paloma, an asylum seeker from Guatemala. All during the interview, other female characters serve as a chorus stridently echoing her answers and making the work feel like an in-your-face political rant. (The contrivance just drops off after this, so the feel of theater-as-action-for-social-justice doesn’t thread through the production.)
The setting shifts instead to a Tijuana bar where the bulk of the action takes place. Two old ‘goats’ (I’m referring to men who have reach a certain age they should know better than wheeze over young girls,) a judge and his pal, an American pharmacist, talk about male plumbing ailments and bemoan their diminishing attractiveness to young women. If the subject ever was funny, now, in the age of #Metoo, it just feels pathetic and icky.
Meanwhile, bar owner Francisco is playing cards with his cronies, two security guards. His wife tends to baby while also knocking herself out for the coming festival. (That she is treated like a shrew throughout the piece, while he loafs around with his buddies, is also not particularly funny.)
But here, as throughout the play, wherever something starts to boil over potentially and get things going, any dramatic tension is diffused, with someone calling out, “Hey, let’s have a song!” One of the guards, the very talented Nigel Rowe, stands on a chair and obliges with a song about his roots in Oaxaca. His tenor voice has commendable presence. What the song has to do to advance the plot is a mystery. (Note to self: songs in this form often have very little to do with the story line.)
There are several other to-dos that get wound into the story. I simply couldn’t follow Susanna’s role as written, and she’s the lead ingénue. The old pharmacist wants her, and so does Julian, her old beau. Supposedly she is terrified of being blackmailed as a wanton woman, but she seems too sharp and modern to put up with that. Does she want to punish Julian by flirting with the old American? Everyone is put out, especially, it appears Tia Antonia, who as played by Vivian Allen is a cross between the Susanna’s guardian, a calculating madam pimping her and her sister, and a libidinous barfly vying for the girls’ suitors.
Oh, let’s have a song. Ian McEuen takes his turn here. (I’ve seen this talented tenor in several theaters and opera companies but here the guy seemed stuck in a straight jacket.)
One of the biggest disappointments was the music, or should I say the new setting of English words to the music. However the collaborators worked on the old and new songs and translated them into English, it was a hatchet job of prosody. Hence, some of the meanings even got muffled. So much was not singable.
All the buzz about the wall, and there just wasn’t enough there there at the end. No one seemed to know what to do with it. (But oh, boy, do I want to thank the talented students of Latin Youth Center. Theirs is a wall worth commemorating, and decorating it with butterflies proves again that young people have the power to transform the world.)
I also want to give a shout out to Alejandro Gongora as choreographer and his dancers of Corazón Folklórico DC. There was something very authentic, heartfelt, and “lighthearted in spirit” about these dancers. I got the sense watching them that this was the needed corazón that was otherwise missing in the work.
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There were some other lovely moments. One of my favorites (and best written) is Paloma’s theme song “Si me llegara peder/I was born so far from here.” Elizabeth Mondragon feels her way through this emotionally challenging part, and her singing is always heartfelt. She can play fear, outrage, moral hurt, and at the same time gratitude for the little things people to help her. I loved the lullaby that starts with Paloma but brings the others in as well, “The child is fast asleep, put her to bed my love.”
A stand out actor in the production Gustavo Ahualli as Francisco the bar owner. This baritone from Argentina had all the confidence of a veteran singer-actor and the acting chops to make me believe his choices throughout an otherwise somewhat cluttered plot event. He found a way for his character to achieve sustained clarity and focus.
Another performer who gained my respect (especially in Act II) is Mia Rojas. When finally unburdened from the plot and allowed to sing, we realize she was born for this. Singing one of the old pop standards in Spanish, she came alive and delivered a delightful soprano sound while finding a way of shaping an experience.
Too much of the ensemble acting was hammy at best and at worst (in moments) like a page out of The Art of Coarse Acting. Stage director Nick Olcott can do (and has done) better to pull higher and more authentic levels of performance from an ensemble.
Oh, let’s have a song!
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La Paloma at The Wall. Expanded from Breton & De La Vega’s La Verbena de la Paloma. Writer Anna Deeny Morales. Composer, Arranger, & Co-Music Director Ulises Eliseo. Music Director Timothy Nelson. Stage Director Nick Olcott. Set Design by Jonathan Dahm Robertson. Lighting Design by Marianne Meadows. Costume Design by Donna Breslin. Mural Designers & Artist by Sarah Craft and Luis Peralta. Choreography by Alejandro Gongora. Stage Manager Bryan Boyd. With Gustavo Ahualli, Vivian Allvin, Teresa Ferrara, Katherine Fili, Lew Freeman, Chris Herman, Cecilia Deeny Locraft, Carlos Macher, Ian McEuen, Santiago Alfonzo Meza, Elizabeth Mondragon, Mia Rojas, Nigel Rowe and Corazón Folklórico DC. Produced by In Series. Reviewed by Susan Galbraith.
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