The Phoenix Theatre of Indianapolis will produce the regional premiere of Jose Rivera's References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot April 9 through May 2, 2009. In addition, the theatre will present a free staged reading of the play in Spanish at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 3.
Benito is coming home from "a war in the sand" and wife Gabriella is anticipating his arrival. Is he still the man she wants? Is her life what she wants? Stuck in a nowhere town in the desert with other military wives, Gabriela turns to the moon and to her pet cat for advice. She sleeps in the moonlight in her backyard, dreaming vivid scenes of love and loss that are humorous and heartbreaking. She wants more from life -- a better education and a better job. Benito is not home enough to fulfill her dreams, and he is happy being a soldier with only nine years to serve before he can retire. He wants Gabriela to be a good Army wife and wait out the nine years. Meanwhile, teen neighbor Martin yearns for Gabriela and tries to persuade her to become his first sexual conquest. He turns up in her dreams. Rivera's trademark style keeps the audience guessing: Is Gabriela awake or dreaming? As characterized by The New York Times, "José Rivera writes with half his mind on credible reality and the other half in fantasyland. His characters tend to live in a world where magical and concrete forces coexist, where life's anchoring burdens do battle with uncommonly potent wishes and dreams." References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot exemplifies this dichotomy, with a sensual tug of war between the earthiness of Gabriela's desires and the wistfulness of the wide-open night sky.
Jose Rivera was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1955, and now lives in Los Angeles. His style has been called "Magic Realism" (a term first concocted by American literary scholars to describe the work of Latin-American writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alejo Carpentier,
Jorge Amado, Jose Luis Borges and Carlos Fuentes). Rivera resists the label, insisting that all aspects of life are magical if looked at from the right perspective. "It's all in the details," maintains Rivera. "If you choose the details of everyday life carefully enough, and examine them with enough clarity, they can seem magical on their own. Like Garcia Marquez says, the human condition is so absurd, and people are so outrageous, that insane things happen on a daily basis. All you really have to do is record them." Rivera's works include The House of Ramon Iglesia, The Promise (produced by the Phoenix Theatre in 1993), Each Day Dies With Sleep, Giants Have Us in Their Books and Cloud Tectonics (recently retitled as Celestina). Honors include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Fulbright Fellowship in Playwriting, plus a 1993 Obie Award for Outstanding Play and six Drama-Logue Awards including Best Play for Marisol.
Bryan Fonseca directs Melissa Solorzano as Gabriela, Noe Montez as Benito, Matthew Roland as the moon, Phebe [correct; no O] Taylor as the cat., Nate Santana as the coyote, and Julio Chavez as Martin. Martin Flynn is the set designer; Bryan Fonseca is the lighting designer, and Caroline Stine is the costume designer.
References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot will be performed on the Phoenix Mainstage April 9 through May 2, 2009. Performances are Thursdays at 7:00pm, Fridays at 8:00pm, and Saturdays at 8:00pm. Single tickets are $25 for those 25 and over, $15 for those 24 and under. All Thursdays are CheapSeats nights: All tickets are just $15. Group rates for adults are available for groups of 15 or more, as are discounts for buying out the house. In addition, the theatre will present a free staged reading of the play in Spanish at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 3. To purchase tickets: 317.635.PLAY (7529). Website:
www.phoenixtheatre.org.
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