Amadeo ... Leandro Cano Azucena/Hortensia ... Lizette Carrion Eloisa ... Suzanne Phillips El Capitan ... Sven Toorvald Also
Musicians: John A. Asti, woodwinds; Gerry Cavagnaro, accordion, pan pipes; Sam Trujillo, percussion.
As tumultuous as her native Chile's disparate heritage, Isabel Allende's "Stories of Eva Luna" provides ideal material for the absorbing contrasts of Pavel Dobrusky and Per-Olav Sorensen's production.
In the opening scene, chairs, chandeliers, an angel, a harp and telephones hang above a landscape of parachute silk, surrounded by clocks. As Eva Luna (Patricia Mauceri) tells her stories, time goes by; after an avalanche, a photo journalist discovers a girl in a pond, gripped by her dead brothers and sisters, her head alone visible. He dedicates himself to her rescue.
Images as perplexing as this fill the stage to create spells both magical and amusing. Elegant tangos and waltzes are danced by a captain and his love, but for 40 years he has no voice to ask for her hand. He finally speaks to ask; a moment later she is lifeless in his arms.
Through a miracle brought by a doll, a priest regains his eyesight, and questions his faith. An enamored husband imprisons his lover for 47 years, and when, as a hairy hag, she is freed, he is imprisoned to experience her fate. As he had done, she brings him food daily.
A guerrilla colonel with political ambitions receives two words from a mysterious woman who as an illiterate receives a dictionary from a passerby, thus entering the world of words. A tormented man is unable to make love to a sympathetic woman until he learns that she too has suffered abuse as a political prisoner.
In themselves, these stories are not strong, but the interweaving of deceit and hope, death and dancing, destruction and beauty, makes for a rich theatrical tapestry. While the approach can go to excessive lengths, it is always justified by the unknown that lurks in the wings.
There is magic in the air as well as underfoot in the Dobrusky-Sorensen production in which chairs, telephones and a monster in Nazi uniform fall from the stage rafters. A field of flowers suddenly blooms on the stage floor, and multiple trapdoors disclose other provocative wonders.
Mauceri is wise as Eva Luna, while John Hutton brings both flair and compassion to Rolf, the journalist, and to the colonel. Jim Baker is a venomous father, as well as an English poet with a disastrous accent, while Michael Cullen is an anguished, ailing priest, as well as an equally anguished ex-political prisoner.
As a guerrilla leader, a doctor and a policeman, Bernard K. Addison is an imposing presence. Kathleen M. Brady, one of the glories of the Denver company, plays the priest's sister, comforting him with sweaters, and is a grand figure of passion in a tango episode.
Suzanne Phillips and Sven Toorvald provide excellent and varied ballroom dancing, while Feiga M. Martinez brings dramatic authenticity to the illiterate who discovers words. Lizette Carrion suffers a lengthy soaking in what seems very dirty water, and as Hortensia has a powerful dance to herself. Leandro Cano is the prisoner of his infatuation and ultimately his own prisoner.
While design aspects are unique, the Dobrusky-Sorensen collaboration weaves its into an arresting fabric.
With: Gabriella Cavallero, Gregory Norman Cruz, Kenneth Marines.
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Date in print: Mon., Apr. 11, 1994