Theater Review: Debajo Del Árbol De Almendra
Mental Illness is not the easiest thing to discuss, especially among communities battling the constant, historical threat of erasure. With so many of us waking up to how systems have been constantly built against us, how that feels is not seen as a conducive discussion. Life sucks. People sabotage. Move On. Yet, writer, director Luis Caballeros´”Debajo Del Árbol de Almendras” shows when your mind turns against your heart, you have no choice but to face you.
Divided into 3 acts circling 20 minutes each, ACT I sets the scene for the confusion of double consciousness. The weight of carrying multiple voices in your head to the point of choosing who you want to be, for one second, feels like a millennium. Immediately, we are introduced to Tony Padilla (Bill Oxedine), a super macho man that hides with misogyny and homophobia the excruciating, painful remnants of his father´s abuse. By his side, is Tony Ruiz (Cesar Cova), whom is out, proud, and superbly effeminate. This ¨Tonys¨ are desperate and combative with each other in defining freedom, dominance, and authenticity, but the problem is both Tony’s are the same: two voice, one body, and a battle of identities born from a violent war their father declared on them and their mother, as a child. For anyone who has been a victim of narcissistic abuse, Oxedine and Cova play to perfection, in both comedy and anguish, the feeling you can never be yourself when the voices of the past still shape your future.
In Act II, Edna Lee Figueroa KILLS it. She was phenomenal and a one woman tour de force as a drunkard that has caught her ugly husband cheating. She delivers her lines with punch, panache, and precision as she drives her audience through the emotional rollercoaster of being emotionally betrayed by someone you always knew was mediocre…. you just did not expect them to be malicious. Her heart breaks in assuming her husband´s lack of features meant more fidelity. She was never safe, and the publicity of her humiliation leads her down a hilarious, homicidal path that has the crowd cheering, laughing, and solidifying the plays´ themes of betrayal.
When you give your heart to someone, it is an act of beauty, trust, and danger. It is saying I love you and I trust you will love that love back, beautifully. From Act I to Act II, our characters are mentally fractured to the point of darkness because the people they trusted betrayed them with no apologies, shame, or even attempts to redeem. Years of abuse and boredom were finalized with a need for medication or a craving for murder. This energy capitalizes in Act III.
Act III starts off with same dialogues as Act I. The difference is it is between a young woman, Antonia (Kiara Alejandra) and her shadow (Joel Isaac); encouraging her to end her life after a childhood of sexual abuse. Kiara nosedives into the tragic mind of a woman still, mentally, replaying a childhood where her body was treated more carnal than cared for. As she descends and grapples with the purpose of a life so disrupted from its very beginning, you weep for someone that never got a chance to have sanity without the turmoil placed upon her by others.
Lasting till January 25, at Teatro Circulo, but I really hope it gets an extension or brought back soon. What I love about New York as an artistic epicenter is that you will get everything, but it is nice to find art that good, important, and universal. The cast is PHENOMENAL and Caballeros´ work is irresistible as much as necessary. BUY TICKETS HERE
