Playwright: The Cast
At: Teatro Luna at Chicago Dramatists
Phone: ( 773 ) 878-5862; $15
Runs through: Feb. 13
In what has become a welcome annual event, las mujeres del Teatro Luna are back with an evening of short, frequently sassy monologs written and performed by company members. The themes are familiar—generational conflicts, cultural dichotomies, dating rituals—but the interpretations are pointed, personal and entertaining.
Miranda Gonzalez riffs on the popular Puerto Rican folk song, 'Que Bonita Bandera,' and the cultural split she felt having a Mexican mother and a long-gone Puerto Rican father. Learning that her father really was African-American meant abandoning the romanticized dream of her unknown Puerto Rican papi for the reality of a man with whom she has only genes in common. It's an odd judgment to feel that half Black is not as exciting as all Latina. For Gonzalez, this fact of her life remains an unfinished story.
Diane Herrera, unwed at 30, offers a personal psycho-sexual history of romantic and sexual expectations unfulfilled and gradually diminished ( men are pigs ) . 'It's hard to pinpoint my transition from virgin to ho',' she says, explaining how she resisted sex ( she was in her 20s before she gave it up ) so she could be an unstained bride wearing her grandmother's wedding dress. Ultimately, she acquired a reputation within her devout Mexican family as a party animal like her brothers. 'The women in my family never drink,' she explains. 'You can't take care of your drunken men if you're drunk yourself.'
Tanya Saracho is next, a rising star writer who's now a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists. Her short drama has the quality of fiction, of a character who's someone other than Saracho herself. That's a complement, not a criticism. In the angriest of the four monologs, she portrays a Latina married to an Anglo professor, repeatedly hitting the brick wall of preconceptions. She slyly mistrusts gringo housekeepers and waiters ( sharp satire here ) ; she's mistaken for the nanny of her own child, rather than the mother; academics are surprised by her sophisticated use of English. Alienated, she flees the scene of the crimes against her. This sad tale ends in a motel room, but that certainly is not the end of this woman's story. Could this be a fragment of a larger work?
The evening concludes with Marisabel Suarez's funny and powerful tribute to Cuba. She's a confirmed Fidelista like her mother: that is, they blame Castro for everything. Miami-born Suarez's anti-Castro feelings blossomed only as she acquired knowledge of her mother and grandmother's Cuban heritage, and their sense of loss and betrayal by the Castro regime ( which I know from my Guantanamo cousins ) . Despite the evening's biggest laughs ( delivered in Spanish punch lines ) , Suarez's work has solemn power and personal urgency.
Once more, Teatro Luna shoots laser moonbeams.
Critics' Picks
Gagarin Way, A Red Orchid Theatre, Jan. 24-March 6. Hollywood expatriate Michael Shannon comes home to team with director Guy Van Swearingen for some of that gritty and violent flimflam that they do SO well in this American premiere. MSB
Intimate Apparel, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Jan. 23-March 13. Does she or doesn't she? Only her dressmaker knows for sure in Lynn Nottage's play about the craftswomen who kept Victoria's secrets. MSB
Measure for Measure, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, through March 20. Shakespeare's never-more-timely tale, which makes politics and sexual shenanigans uneasy bedfellows, gets an inspired update from director Barbara Gaines. RR
Monty Python's Spamalot, Shubert Theatre, through Jan. 23. Utter silliness, but inspired utter silliness adding wicked Broadway satire to the best bits of the film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Always look on the bright side of life. Take any ticket you can get. JA
— By Abarbanel, Barnidge and Reed
