Los Angeles Theater Review: SE LLAMA CRISTINA (The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena)

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by Trevor Thomas on January 29, 2014

in Theater-Los Angeles

NO COMPRENDO CRISTINA

I’m throwing in the towel, giving up the ghost, packin’ up my mules and headin’ West.

Lord knows I tried.  I watched attentively, I took notes, I came home and read the script on my iPad. I printed it out, read it again with pen in hand, filling the margins with asterisks and arrows.

Paula Christensen and Justin Huen in Boston Court's production of "Se Llama Cristina."

I admit defeat: I don’t at all understand Octavio Soliz’ play Se Llama Cristina, now receiving a “traveling world premiere” at The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena. (A different production played the Magic in San Francisco last year; after closing here, it goes on to premiere engagements with other member theaters of the National New Play Network.)

Somewhat similarly to Sartre’s No Exit, two strangers awaken in an unfamiliar place from which there is no apparent escape. The area of their imprisonment is marked by a suspended horizontal steel rectangle lit on all sides by fluorescent tubes which turn on and off at moments unrelated to anything happening on stage.

Paula Christensen and Justin Huen in Boston Court's production of "Se Llama Cristina."

Where are they? Is this a cell, a motel room, an oubliette? All that seems clear is that the Man (Justin Huen) and the Woman (Paula Christensen) share pasts that intersect only at odd dream-like points and whose only tangible connections are an empty baby carrier and the fact of their captivity.

The missing child is the organizing principle of the play, a character who appears at the end, and then only as the recorded bawling of an infant.  As the actors rage, foam, lash out and screech at each other for the next intermissionless 90 minutes, the empty wicker bassinet is tossed and kicked about the stage like a catnip toy.

Paula Christensen and Justin Huen in Boston Court's production of "Se Llama Cristina."

Perhaps to aid them in self-discovery, the playwright introduces two additional characters whose relationship to the pair is ultimately, like everything else here, baffling.  First is the woman’s abusive skinhead ex (Christian Rummel) who alternately threatens and serenades her from various corners of the stage. Then, late in the 9th inning, a girl (Amielynn Abellera) shows up inexplicably.  She speaks at length in Spanish; she’s cute and animated; she seems in possession of something that might resolve all the mystery, but if she does, she keeps it to herself.

That’s honestly the best I can do for you.

Justin Huen and Paula Christensen in Boston Court's production of "Se Llama Cristina."

Though the directorial flourishes with which Robert Castro peppers his staging are at times visually arresting, too many of them intrude on the storytelling and seem better suited to a minimalist script. Se Llama Cristina is hardly that; it’s teeming with  text that, while far too often crude, is still ravishing at times and sufficiently convoluted to require great clarity from its interpreters. It doesn’t get it.

Set and lighting designs are by Gronk and Ben Zamora respectively. Steering clear of the realistic set called for in the script, the playing surface of the stage is painted in garish colors and shapes, and the back wall is lit by a long bank of orange-red fluorescent tubes which goes up and down at peculiar moments.  Effective floor spots cast arresting noir shadows on the black side walls of Boston Court’s ample stage.

Christian Rummel, Paula Christensen and Justin Huen in Boston Court's production of "Se Llama Cristina."

Veronika Vorel and John Zalewski’s sound is the best design element in the production. Mr. Zalewski also composed the compelling musical score which at times employs evocative mechanical sequencing reminiscent of a first generation Moog synthesizer.

In his program notes, Mr. Solis admits this play had languished in his “Fail File” for 20 years until he received a commission from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and dusted if off. Perhaps under pressure of deadline, he says he at last found the solution for finishing the intricate story.  To this reviewer, such a solution still seems a distant hope.

Amielynn Abellera, Justin Huen and Paula Christensen in Boston Court's production of "Se Llama Cristina."

The celebrated playwright goes on to talk about how the work followed on the news of his wife’s first pregnancy and his reaction to the fears which often plague about-to-be fathers. Tantalizingly, he writes, “I was afraid that I would be cruel and violent or, at the very least, cold and uncaring. But my greatest fear was that I would abandon my daughter, that I would on one final disheartening occasion wish her away.”

Where the hell’s that play?  I would have loved exploring the mind of someone whose self-doubts are expressed with such dark malevolence. While the play hints at similar subterranean impulses, the piece seems conceived by someone who instead decided to write an allegory and save himself the soul-searching.

That, in the final analysis, may be the most interesting thing about Se Llama Cristina: what it isn’t.

Christian Rummel and Paula Christensen in Boston Court's production of "Se Llama Cristina."photos by Ed Krieger

Se Llama Cristina
The Theatre @ Boston Court
Boston Court Performing Arts Center
70 North Mentor Avenue in Pasadena
scheduled to end on February 23, 2014
for tickets, call (626) 683-6883
or visit www.BostonCourt.org

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