Wide-ranging and stirring ‘¡Ay, Carmela!’ at GALA Theatre
Monday, September 19th, 2011Amid the devastation of war, a piece of fruit might seem an item of small consequence. But in a scene in Jose Sanchis Sinisterra’s stirring play “¡Ay, Carmela!,” a victim of the Spanish Civil War finds that a pear conveys bitter truths about life and death. Wandering through the afterlife, a vaudevillian named Carmela, who has been killed by General Franco’s forces, realizes that, while she can still crack jokes and caress her husband, she cannot taste a pear, once one of her favorite foods. In the muscular and powerfully acted version of “¡Ay, Carmela!” now at GALA Hispanic Theatre, performer Mona Martinez steeps the moment in bleak sadness. When her vivacious Carmela takes a bite of pear (a quince in Sanchis Sinisterra’s original script), her body stills and a numbed emptiness creeps into her eyes. Then she buries her face in her hands. Read full article > >
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Wide-ranging and stirring ‘¡Ay, Carmela!’ at GALA Theatre
