SF Theater Blog: "Bruja" ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

Sunday, June 10, 2012

"Bruja" ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

If you want to really enjoy Luis Alfaro's "Bruja," which is having its World Premiere at the Magic, make sure you re-acquaint yourself with Euripides' "Medea" -- which you probably missed when it opened, back in 431 BC. The mystical sorceress, driven to madness by lost love, dominated the imaginations of the ancient Greeks and her timeless story touches us still.

Alfaro, in the third of his trilogy of Greek tragedies relocated, loosely, to downtown 21st Century Los Angeles, gives us a Medea (Sabina Zuniga Varela) who is a Nahuatl healer, a Jason (Sean San Jose) who is a day laborer blinded by thoughts of economic success, a virtual one-woman Greek chorus in Medea's servant Vieja (Wilma Bonet) and a Creon ( the always spellbinding Carlos Aguirre), the doomed local tycoon who knows everyone's limits better than they themselves.

We find a few small nits to pick. The kids' passivity makes no sense -- what L.A. kid is not going to run when he sees his mama coming for him with a sword? And the compromises of Vieja's language -- Alfaro wants her to be real, and therefore speaking Spanish or at least Spanglish, but he needs an English-speaking audience to understand her. There are several moments where the author achieves neither. Wilma Bonet, a great actor, could perhaps convey her message more convincingly with less dialog.

This is a terrific show. If you see the story through the eyes of Alfaro and Artistic Director Loretta Greco, you can grasp it at its heart: we all struggle to confront our own monster. Sometimes we slay her and sometimes she slays us but it is always the voyage that brings us home. Que viva la bruja!

RATINGS : ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "Bruja" Four Stars. Please, at the very least, read a synopsis of "Medea" before you go. If you don't, certain actions may seem overwrought. But if you do, you will see that the characters have no choice but to behave the way they do. Luis Alfaro has given us a fascinating new path into a story we already know well.

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"Bruja"
Magic Theater
Fort Mason, Building D, San Francisco
Through June 24
$22-$62

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As a reviewer, I'm like everyone else: I want to see the light. I want to be lifted out of my seat and into the world of the performance. When the new 'My Fair Lady' comes along I want to rush out and tell you about it. When the show comes up short, I want to figure out why.

In San Francisco, we are blessed with world-class premiere houses, astonishingly good local companies and excellent regional theater. But theater tickets cost real money. I want you to feel a little more secure before you punch BUY.

EXPLANATION OF NEW IMPROVED RATINGS SYSTEM

Our Ratings System has been revamped! Half Stars have been eliminated. Capitalized BANGLES of PRAISE and italicized baubles of despair take their place.

BANGLES are good, and the more the merrier. A ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG BANG rating is better than a ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG rating.

baubles are bad. A ☼ ☼ ☼ baub baub rating is worse than a ☼ ☼ ☼ baub rating. A ☼ ☼ ☼ baub would drop the show below ☼ ☼ ☼, which is the coveted Julie Andrews Line. Below the Julie Andrews Line we recommend you do not spend your Do, Re or Mi.

Note that using this system, a ☼ ☼ BANG is roughly the same as a ☼ ☼ ☼ baub. Neither would be recommended.

A ☼ ☼ ☼ show must have something excellent about it, and it has to involve the story. Great acting helps, terrific staging too. But it's got to be in the writing and the actors have to bring the story alive. It can be big or small, short or long. Just don't bore us. If you do: No Julie Andrews.

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ are rare. For a show to earn this rating, it must not only be very good but it must also move us. We need to grow during those two acts plus intermission and we need to be surprised. The author must make us go "AH-HAH! THAT'S what he was getting at!" He must tell a perfect story and the actors must deliver. Uproarious, drooling laughter will always help. Deadening angst plus hopeless and depressing poverty makes it harder.

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ are practically impossible. They probably need to involve amazing music and a set you can't take your eyes off in addition to everything else that makes up a Four Star production. In Plotnik's 10 years of reviewing theater in the Bay Area, he has given ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ to only one show: Jersey Boys. And it didn't hurt that Frankie Valli was in the audience on Opening Night and tottered up onto stage to hug the actor portraying him.

We hope our NEW IMPROVED awards system adds to your enjoyments. Please contact me if you feel I have forgotten something obvious. I am in Spain, where it is raining.

Henry Higgins

BANG An especially fine moment

baub A particularly irritating moment

<¿> Something incomprehensible, where you scratch your chin and go "Waa-huhhh?"

L-R Special category for David Mamet and Sam Shepard plays. Amount of times you squirm in your seat.