Comala, Comala will stay with you long after the performance, says Megan Amato
★★★★
A dimly lit room with warm lighting. Three tables set up with various props displayed, including candles, wooden bowls and bottles filled with mescal and water. Several music stands and one piano.
These are the things I noticed as I found my seat, the small paper cup with a shot of mescal given upon entry spilling slightly on my hand.
It’s a very atmospheric scene, one that draws on all the senses and built anticipation for what was to come from this adaption of the late Mexican author Juan Rulfo’s novel Pedro Páramo.
Our cast fill the space in traditionally embroidered modern garments and in operatic style, a woman voices her woes towards the corner of the room before a man enters in tenor. Their duo is beautiful and haunting, a premonition for the performance still to come.
Told in Spanish with English subtitles projected on the well, the story moves at a slow pace and weaves multiple interlinking narratives.
The actors are self-aware as they play many roles in this melodrama about a young man who enters the world of the dead to enact revenge on his father. Despite multiple warnings from the ghosts of Comala, he is sucked into their world as he reenacts his father’s sins.
Multiple instruments and modes of song and storytelling are used throughout the performance. This is by no means a gentle story but one of full of dark topics and just as dark humour. Each member of cast was fully immersed in their roles and excelled at making use of the small space to invoke the feeling of that scene.
Some of the story may have been lost in translation as a non-Spanish speaker, the dialogue complex and interwoven between the past and present, but the quality of acting and performance of each cast member continue to linger with me after the performance.
Zoo Southside – Studio
Aug 14-19, 21-25.
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