"Valor, Agravio y Mujer" GALA Hispanic Theatre 3333 14th Street N.W. Metro: Columbia Heights Through Oct. 22
Grade: B-
The 16th century play, "Valor, Agravio y Mujer" has made it to the 21st century, and it's still fighting the macho image. In the play, Do¤a Leonor (Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey) has the courage to cross-dress to take revenge on Don Juan (Mel Rocher). She hopes to regain her respect by shattering Don Juan's honor and his typical "handsome" macho image. All this occurs in Spanish with English subtitles at the GALA-Tivoli Theatre.
Director Hugo Medrano set the action on the outskirts of Brussels in the 1850s. Four simple flats emulating the countryside set the stage for the different environments, including the indoor scenes. With only a few props, the set emulates rooms, beautiful gardens and archery fields. To keep everything in tone, even the stools were painted brown with a thin layer of grass at the top to match the backdrop's landscape.
Once Don Juan arrives in Brussels, Leonor makes her appearance as a cousin of Capitan Don Fernando Rivera (Carlos del Valle) named Don Leonardo Ponce de Leon. Her short hair and full figure help her portrayal of a man, but her imitation of a masculine voice does not measure up. Ribete (Luis Simon), her servant, repeatedly reminds her to lower her tone of voice as part of the script, but perhaps he should have done it more often during rehearsal.
Leonor is invited to stay at the same house as Don Juan, and they are put together in the same room. The playwright introduces everyone in the first two scenes, but their intentions are not completely revealed until much later. Unfortunately, by the middle of the first act, the play begins to bore. The characters use the same approach to Don Juan's speech too often, and Ribete is the only one who consistently delivers short, witty conversations.
The supporting roles are the backbone of this play. Their small but comical interventions and affairs remain disconnected from the tangle of the main plot but manage to keep the audience attentive. Ribete's slightly fey personification adds spice to the play, and Tomillos' wannabe prose dialogues and affair with Flora (Lucrecia Basualdo) spark a smile here and there.
In the house full of visitors, Ludovico, the narcissistic prince, and Don Juan, the ever-so-inflated hero, eventually find themselves vying for the beautiful Estella's (Cynthia Benjamin) love. Yet Estella has, of course, fallen in love with the newly arrived Leonardo in a predictable case of mistaken identity. One would expect the pace to pick up at the house due to all the confusion, but it fails to do so. It is Estella's flirtatious character alone that holds the audience's interest; Ludovico's self-love only gets under their skin.
Due to the length of the monologues and longwinded delivery of lines, it is hard for the non-Spanish speaking part of the audience to keep up with the subtitles. This is especially disappointing since GALA usually does such a good job of translating humor into English. Even the Spanish-speaking audience had a difficult time understanding some of Don Juan's monologues because of his thick accent.
In the second act, Leonor cunningly maneuvers to fulfill her mission. She agrees to meet with Estella on the balcony, but tells Ludovico and Don Juan to meet Estella at two different balconies. The simple yet ingenious flats open into windows and balconies allowing the perfect expos? of the couples in "Romeo and Juliet."
As the plot unravels, Leonor comes close to killing Don Juan but is interrupted in two well-choreographed but insipid combats. The combats do serve the playwright's feminist argument, but may leave some in the audience with mixed feelings. The ending has a surprise for those who adventure to see this entertaining play.
The hour-and-a-half performance runs Thursdays through Sundays until Oct. 22.
