VIDA

VIDA is a Spanish-language theatre troupe offering annual collections of short plays free to the public.  The theme of this year´s show is “LA LARGA ESPARA or THE WAITING GAME.”  The pieces dramatize the “in between time”, that is, the prologue to a climax that may or may not occur.  Stories included in the collection are: Maruxa Vilalta’s “Una mujer, dos hombres, y un balazo” (Mexico, 1981), a piece that satirizes political corruption and parodies the melodramatic genre, in which a dishonest governmental candidate must attempt to keep all his skeletons in their closet during the most important night of his career; Julio Cortázar’s “Dos juegos de palabras” (Argentina, 1948), an absurdist piece that takes place in a town plaza. The audience becomes part of the scenery as a young woman roams the plaza’s parameters, attempting to escape the “cuadro,” (the “scene”) while her parents and a peculiar night watchman discuss her upcoming marriage; “El Quijote en una nuez,” a graduate student-written adaptation of Cervantes’s classic, which features some of Don Quijote’s most memorable escapades; Ariano Suassuna´s “Auto da compacedia” (Brazil, 1955), a neobaroque, comedic portrait of life in northern Brazil, full of humorous literary “types” revived from the literature of the Middle Ages; and And a brief skit in Italian, titled “Nella provincia di Monza Brianza.”