Displaying items by tag: Felipe Carrasco

An Ibsen play on a cold winter’s evening just feels right. Marti Lyons delivers a stylish (and concise) production of “Hedda Gabler” at Remy Bumppo. With an impressive cast of Remy Bumppo ensemble and new faces, this 100-minute version gets right to the point.

Among the countless translations and adaptations of “Hedda Gabler” that have been written, Christopher Shinn’s version makes a bold, modern statement. Taken from a literal adaptation by Anne-Charlotte Hanes Harvey, this telling dispenses with Ibsen’s ambiguity almost entirely. Classic melodramas tend to run long and in this day and age, audiences easily grow frustrated with overly long plays laden with innuendo. Shinn’s version is structured in a way that modern audiences will take more from. While the Shinn script may not have been a success on Broadway in 2009 (even with Mary Louise Parker), Marti Lyons’ revival strikes the right balance with it.

Ensemble member Annabel Armour as Aunt Tesman has the first lines and immediately sets the tone of the new Tesman home, a vibe that’s somewhere between charming and unsettling. Armour captures something both aspirational and pitiful about the character in her reliably masterful way. In this telling, Hedda, who is played by Aurora Real de Asua, is feral, almost manic. Her short temper is always shown through smiling teeth and far-off looks. Hedda here is more certain of feeling trapped in a bad marriage. It’s less of a revelation and more of a palpable sense of dread. The only female character that seems to threaten Hedda is Thea Elvsted played by Gloria Imseih Petrelli, whose raw vulnerability is a counter to Hedda’s rampant cruelty.

Greg Matthew Anderson plays the blackmailing judge Brack with such dastardly charm, it’s almost hard to see what Hedda objects to. In the same way Thea is the counter of Hedda, Ejlert Lovborg (Felipe Carrasco) is the helplessly vulnerable of the two men. Carrasco’s performance is also that of a condemned man. In other scripts, this acceptance comes at a more laborious price. Here his conflict with conventional society feels urgent from the start.

Remy Bumppo brings a lot of humor to “Hedda Gabler”. Hedda’s one-liners have always been amusing, in the same mean-spiritedness of an Albee play. Linda Gillum brings a lot of physical comedy as Berte, the Tesman’s quirky maid. Shinn’s script has a sharp sense of wit, even if the somewhat frank sexual metaphors seem closer to 2026 than 1891.

Along with a more forwardly grown-up script, Kotryna Hilko and Joe Schermoly’s costumes and sets are bathed in a moody purple and when paired with Christopher Kriz' electrifying incidental music brings on the feeling of an impending storm.

“Hedda Gabler” is a divisive play. You can either see her as a victim or a spoiled villain. Shinn makes that decision for you, in at-times clunky divulgences. This particular version might not find you quibbling over the character’s true wants or intentions. Instead, Shinn is cutting away the excess so audiences can focus on the powerful statement Ibsen was making before most women knew true autonomy.

Through March 8 at Remy Bumppo at Theatre Wit. 1229 W Belmont Ave. 773-975-8150

This review is proudly shared with our friends at www.TheatreInChicago.com. 

The play is set in the late 1970s during Argentina’s notorious Guerra Sucia, otherwise known as the “Dirty War.” Three story follows three generations of women - a grandmother, a mother and a daughter – as they stand together against a corrupt government that has been known make its opposers disappear.

As “The Madres” opens we see a grandmother, Josefina (played in Chicago by Ivonne Coll from TV's hit show “Jane the Virgin”), getting an unexpected visit from her church's priest, Padre Juan (Ramon Camin). Padre Juan seems to be trying to help Josefina protect her daughter, Carolina (Lorena Diaz), who has been openly demonstrating against a vicious military dictatorship by wearing the white head scarf of "The Madres,” a group of courageous mothers who took to the streets of Argentina in front of the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires to protest the kidnapping , torture and murder of not only their children but hundreds of thousands of citizens , artists, journalists and activists. 

From 1976 to 1983, during the "Dirty War," this military regime enlisted members of the catholic church who kept a close eye on their congregations to scare the families of the "disappeared" into not searching for them. The whole situation strongly resembles the Nazi tactics which forced Jews and non- Jews alike from all walks of life to decide between keeping their own lives and remaining family members safe and pressuring the police and clergy to release the living but captive family members from torturous conditions of imprisonment. 

At one point the enormity of this genocide is put across by the description of "hundreds of packages falling from the sky onto farm land" - packages which were filled not with supplies but with the dismembered bodies of the thousands of kidnapped citizens. 

It is a shockingly relevant play given how recently this violence all occurred and the hostile stance that President Trump is actively taking, encouraging against demonstrators and journalists alike who speak out and/or attend protests of his various "actions" like the Muslim ban and the building of the pipeline on Native American land which resulted in severe injuries to protesters. 

During the play, a soldier for the government pays a visit to the family who was a childhood friend of Carolina and an ardent admirer of her daughter who has been kidnapped along with her husband even though she is pregnant. Felipe Carrasco plays the soldier, Diego, with a scary and realistic edginess of a madman who clearly wants to use the kidnapping as an opportunity to be with Carolina's daughter- even though she hates him and is under extreme physical and emotional  distress. 

Ivonne Call and Lorena Diaz really convey the daily struggle and psychological toll that living under these horrific circumstances cause and there were many tears shed with these talented actresses monologues in the catharsis of this short but very informational and moving piece.    

Although the subject matter is difficult and depressing, playwright, Stephanie A. Walker, succeeds at showing the audience both the horror of the genocide and the beauty and pleasures of the Argentinian family lifestyle that the "Dirty War" interrupted and ended for at least 100,000 innocent civilians.  

The play, which opened in Los Angeles last year could not be better, clearly shows how impossible it is for civilians to survive or even to publicly protest the advancing hatred of a violent ideology once a dictator-like regime has taken physical control of the populace including their clergymen, police and legislators. 

Highly Recommended. 

Teatro Vista’s “The Madres” is being performed at Victory Gardens Biograph Theater through May 27th. For more information visit TeatroVista.org.