I have no desire to spend the next four years pathetically referencing current events in my reviews, so let's get this out of the way. It was a great relief to spend the night right after the Presidential election in a different era. It's not an innocent time, just one where artistic risk was the norm, and cultural production wasn't consumed by AI, IP, or social media. Time? It could be the 1980s or '90s, when urban performance art was very prevalent. Or maybe it's 2007, when theater kid Branden Jacobs-Jenkins took over Alina Troyano's NYU class. Troyano's pride, which has been changing for a long time Carmelita Tropicanaa sexist like Carmen Miranda and a social critic who tends to wear attractive, trashy clothes and bark quickly in a thick Cuban style. With Troyano, Jacobs-Jenkins was struck by the love of the old East Village, its chaos, its aesthetic freedom. However, life would take him from performing arts to becoming one of the most famous playwrights of his generation (eg. It's worth it). Dear lony Give me Carmelita Tropicana! it represents the amalgamation of Troyano's decades-long practice, and Jacobs-Jenkins' strong desire for her mentor's world.
The two are co-writers of the absurd comedy, which happens to be the last production to run at Soho Rep, which was founded 49 years ago. Many memories swirl in the heads of the theater at 46 Walker Street. Personally, I went back to the age (25 of it) thinking about Richard Maxwell show me there, Cowboys and Indianswhere I got the British accent and the robotic deadpan. Over the years I've had my mind blown at the Soho Rep: many neo-dadaist plays by Mac Wellman, by Sarah Kane. It explodedJackie Sibblies Drury's FairviewMelissa James Gibson's [sic]Shayok Misha Chowdhury's Public Obscenityand Jacobs-Jenkins' own Octoroon. This company has the ability to completely renew its space every time, magically giving its black box great depth, or using the underground space to reveal the subterranean dimensions under our seats.
This polymorphous production—directed with frisky panache by Eric Ting—is no different. Scenic design by Mimi Tien, an old hand at creating visual spaces that are constantly changing and unfolding before our eyes. Here Tien (along with co-designer Tatiana Kahvegian) takes us from an empty, gray lawyer's office to a bejeweled East Village loft and finally, a sugary place called Phantasmagoria, where cockroaches and mice have love stories and Troyano's literary influences spill out. epidemic. to lock together.
I'm not entirely sure that telling a hallucinogenic plot would ruin its randomness. We open with a meeting between Branden (Ugo Chukwu) Alina (Troyano herself) and their respective lawyers (Will Dagger and Keren Lugo) presenting the contracts. Alina is there to sign over the intellectual property rights over Carmelita Tropicana to Branden. He, in a depressed funk, decides to “kill” his creation, and Branden thinks he can make a TV show about him. Alina then suddenly breaks the fourth wall and tells us how she got here. What follows in the extended flashback is a twisted tale of teacher-student rivalry, with Branden as a former well-to-do student who looks at Alina with pity against the scorn of the people. He loosely refers to Alina's “garbage” and wonders if she might have early-onset dementia.
Determined to get the rights to Carmelita, Branden breaks into Alina's house while she sleeps and whispers in her ear, “Give me the Carmelita Tropicana!” when he wakes up and looks at the explosion of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, aged 17.th century nun and poet. Branden wakes up in “Phantasmagoria”—a surreal place where all of Alina's characters live.
To make a long summary short, Carmelita Tropicana spirit has Branden's body (shadows All of Me again Poison) and finally, to drive out the fictional person (who, after all, wants to survive), Branden's spirit must remain in Alina's body and that explosion of Sor Juana will be an important tool to return Carmelita to the world of pretense. . It's complicated-good. There's a goldfish from Branden's past that he coughs up while in Phantasmagoria, which grows incredibly large over the course of the play (droll puppets by Greg Corbino). Dagger has a monologue barnstormer as a fish, who has reached the edgelord's consciousness and plans to take revenge on the world.
Ting and the playwrights were blessed with an attractive, diverse cast. Chukwu is funny and charming as the straight man of the game (say); Lugo transforms gracefully from femme cockroach to beachy Sor Juana; and secret weapon Octavia Chavez-Richmond is equally vivid as the male Cuban bus driver and, later, the sweetly witty María Irene Fornés (the late, great experimental playwright). And then, there's Troyano himself, an infectiously hilarious impersonator of our modern-day digital dystopia. To be honest, I am sick and afraid of this world, where attention is monetized and conformity is encouraged. Carmelia Tropicana: Take us all to Phantasmagoria!
Give me Carmelita Tropicana! | 2 hours. There is no rest. | Soho Rep | 46 Walker Street | boxoffice@sohorep.org | Buy Tickets Here
