CRANES HAS A CLIPPED WING
Last night at REDCAT in downtown Los Angeles, CalArts presented a new play by Octavio Solis, and the story is magnificent. In East L.A., a teenager named Nico has been mowed down by a car outside his home, but it’s a mystery as to why. And this was a special kid who listened to Jean Sibelius’s gloriously mystical Scene with Cranes on his portable player headset, and collected found objects, storing them in a shoebox. But this gentle kid, who has been abused by his dad, lived in a rough neighborhood, so some of the oddities he found are not for someone his age. His doting mother Lourdes is so distraught and numb that all she can do is try to figure out how this could happen, but she is leery of getting help from a detective — an erstwhile thug now trying to do good for his community. Meanwhile, Nico’s older sister Yolie has taken up with roughtrade Angel, the guy who happened to be driving the fatal car that killed Nico. Her cousin Letty and bestie Ruby are on hand to console, act inappropriately, and divulge secrets. The unravelling of the story contains enough shocks and surprises to keep us guessing, along with Lourdes, why..? how..?
Marissa Chibás
But Solis and his inventive, sensitive director Chi-wang Yang are up to something different here. The production is a puzzlebox of theatricality. As with his contemporary Luis Alfaro, Solis uses magical realism, poetic language, Spanglish, flashbacks, East L.A. as a backdrop, Greek Theater tropes (wailing, chorus, etc.), and symbolism (“cranes” means gentrification as well as not being able to fly above one’s circumstances). The play chockablock with devices. That and a gallimaufry of acting styles throughout often detracted from our emotional involvement. Solis is decontructing a story that is so great, I wondered that it even needed deconstructing. But this was produced by an organization that invites its artists to experiment. And that we got in spades. Predictable it is not. And once we are on board (well over 60 minutes into the 90-minute one-act) the ending, a coup de théâtre beautifully staged by Yang, is an emotional stunner I won’t soon forget.
Stacia Marcum, Hannah Trujillo, Angela Rosado
In order to help keep sane in this awful time, Mama Lourdes (an intense Marissa Chibás) invites, and converses with, her dead son, Nico (an angelic Isaias Alexander Miranda), who is on stage most of the time. When he shows her what his shoebox contains, it’s probably her rummaging through his stuff. Yet she is talking out loud to him, whom nobody else can hear or see. It’s as if she is talking to memories that never existed. This is magical realism, most often a Latin-American device: a supernatural element in a real-world setting with a literary tone (the grieving mother states “I could eat this whole pinche sunset in one trago. So pretty, making the sky go lilac and grey, turning the houses to ashy little tombs”). Also, the mother’s name is spiritual — Lourdes is the town in France where Saint Bernadette had visions of Mary.
Isaias Alexander Miranda, Marissa Chibás
Because of the devices, confusion ensued. Nico shows his mom an unused condom he found in the couch, and we see a flashback in which sister Yolie (Hannah Trujillo) sneaks into the house with squeeze Angel (Emilio Garcis-Sanchez) for some nookie, but is this an event that Lourdes imagines, or is Nico speaking to her from the grave? (When Lourdes said,”Nothing’s real,” I thought, It should be for the audience.) Lourdes asks her daughter’s galpal Ruby (Stacia Marcum), whose father was killed by a stray bullet, what it’s like to grieve. Ruby — who up to now has been speaking in Chicano English — drops that patois and becomes almost a different character. Would that happen? This is when I wished that the performances had been grounded in reality at all times. When they were, it was thrilling, especially when the dad Romero (an unflinching, gut-wrenching turn by Hilario Saavedra), disabled from a stroke, terrified us with his venom. Another actor that stayed authentic at all times was Garcis-Sanchez as the troubled Angel; from harrowing sorrow to unmitigated brutishness, he enthralled. It’s interesting to notice that his character (as well as Saavedra), even when speaking Solis’s lovely prose, rarely got cloaked in any gimmickry. I think that some actors needed a firmer hand from Mr. Yang with their delivery, which can be uncomfortably overwrought and incongruous (or was that intentional?). Even a device-free scene between Lourdes and Lieutenant Leyva (Tony Sancho) felt undercooked (it is also underwritten — there should be more history between these two).
Hilario Saavedra, Marissa Chibás
Then again, it was impossible not to be involved elsewhere: Nico slow-pacing around the living room while a confession takes place; the three girlfriends posing for an instagram photo just after the accident; the confrontation between a newly empowered Lourdes and a weakened Romero; and a confession from religious cousin Letty (Angela Rosado), who is wracked with guilt over intervening in Yolie’s affairs (or, affair, singular).
Marissa Chibás, Tony Sancho
I must say, for three performances the production values are astounding, exactly the kind you would see Off-Broadway at Atlantic or Roundabout. Under scenic designer Efren Delgadillo Jr.‘s water-stained ceiling is a lived-in room full of hand-me-down furniture (except for dad’s comfy recliner) and a magnet-covered fridge with cereal boxes on it. Christopher Akerlind‘s lighting is even more magical than the proceedings call for, going from lousy lamps lighting the room to anagogic projections on the wall to eerie side-lighting — easily, the best design of the year so far. The original music and sound by Cristian Amigo is haunting and all-encompassing. and Edurne Fernandez‘s costumes are completely credible, except they do look newly purchased and unlived-in.
Emilio Garcia-Sanchez, Marissa Chibás
At the start, there is wailing in the darkness; when the lights come up we see the three young woman screaming and crying in an extremely off-putting and unnatural depiction of grief. It felt especially wrong given Yolie immediately denys that her brother was killed. It may let us know right off the bat that this is no kitchen-sink drama (although it is a drama and there is a kitchen sink), but there must be a better way to grab us from the start. But that final scene, which I wish I could describe, in which we palpably experience Lourdes’ grief along with her, is without a doubt the reason why we go to the theater.
Emilio Garcia-Sanchez
photos by Gema Galiana
Isaias Alexander Miranda
Scene with Cranes
Duende CalArts
REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater)
631 West 2nd St (under Disney Hall)
ends on October 1, 2022 (run sold out; standby tix may be available)
for tickets, call 213-972-8001 or visit REDCAT
