This week, in collaboration with the local theatre company Tablado Puertorriqueño, Presencias graced us with yet another beautifully coordinated work of art in the form of Sol 13, interior. By 7:00PM the people gathering in an enormous queue at Mayagüez’s chilly plaza outside the Yagüez Theater were already quivering with giddy anticipation for the critically-acclaimed and classic play by Luis Rafael Sánchez. The area was teeming with students and general public alike, dressed in their finest attire and accompanied by family and friends.
Photo credit, Xamara Binet
This, of course, given the successful streak with most Presencias events, comes as no surprise. Evelyn Crespo, a special education teacher, was brought on to this specific event as a suggestion by her sister. “We come every time we find out about them [Presencias]. They’re usually very good.” On the same note Emily Ortiz Nazario, a second year Biology student and UPRM school band member said she was attending due to her enrollment in the Presencias course but that “even if I was not in enrolled I would come to these activities because they’re so good.” She also claimed her intrigue to watch the play stirred from a professor who stated “this was the one of the best dramas in Puerto Rican theatre in the last few years.” Her mother Milagros Nazario was also with her, having driven from the nearby town of Sabana Grande to watch the “scenic development of these first-class, internationally praised Puerto Rican actors.”
Amassing on the inside of the spacious marbled theater brimming with class, men and women sat to witness a reflective, thought-provoking literary piece dripping with the sort of history that never stops repeating itself—uncertainty, poverty, mental illness, desperation; these were all themes that resounded strongly throughout the play. All of this is due to the fact that the play in itself is greatly influenced by history, frequently referencing the scare that permeated during the Cold War, or “third war” as it was promptly called, and the impact of American presence in Puerto Rico during the early 1960’s.
Image credit: Mariela del Toro for Presencias UPRM
The performance is a revival brought on by director Gilberto Valenzuela of Luis Rafael Sanchez’s acclaimed drama involving two strikingly realistic vignettes of life in the urban San Juan area during the 1960’s. Fifty-four years ago the play opened its doors to the general public in the fourth annual Puerto Rican Theatre Festival. Now, on the night of November 12, 2015, viewers got to get a taste of the disturbing affairs permeating that decade.
Two pieces constituted the one-act play. In the first half, the audience was presented with La hiel nuestra de cada día, interpreted by the fabulous cast of Idalia Perez Garay, Jorge Luis Ramos, and Luz Maria Rondon. This particular part of the drama induced a colorful array of laughter, sentiment, and rage with its grim picture of an elderly married couple battling their way through poverty and the hardship of time; desiring of a better lifestyle, but still united by faithful comradery no matter the obstacle. All around the audience, eyes brimming with tears and bittersweet smiles served as an indicator of the impact such social themes create within us.
The second half of the play titled Los ángeles se han fatigado—very unlike and, at the same time, remarkably similar to the first in its critical thematic roots—starred Cordelia Gonzalez, who delivered a whopping hour-long monologue as the charismatic Angela Santoni Vincent, a woman driven hysterical by solitude and the jarring remnants of her past. At the culmination of this disconcerting yet completely arresting performance, the audience stood up in unison for a wild standing ovation wherein the actress and the participants of the first half came out in all smiles and humility, while the yells reverberated through the walls.
All in all, the expressions, interim comments, and ultimate uproar of the audience let it be shown the play accomplished what it set out to do: implant itself in the mind of the men women who witnessed it and to plant the seed of humanity. Sol 13, interior was truly an ‘interior’ piece-, an analysis of our innermost fears for sure.
Image credit: Mariela del Toro for Presencias UPRM