Our perspectives on off-broadway theater on New York City’s stages.
*ISLA* brings together an impressive mix of storytelling styles. Shadow puppetry, broomstick puppets, acting, singing, live music, recorded voices and family history all combine to tell the story of three Cuban sisters, their lives in Cuba and their eventual journey to the United States.
Going into *¡Violencia!*, we were expecting something quite different based on the title. What we found instead was a funny, energetic and playful contemporary tragicomedy about heartbreak, mental health, family and all the different versions of ourselves that can end up fighting for control inside our heads.
Carolina Gaitán is magnetic in *VIDA*, a lively journey from rural Colombia to international stardom at Repertorio Español. Music, comedy and drama come together with live accompaniment from Nicolás Raimont and plenty of theatrical flair. Funny, moving and thoroughly entertaining, the fast-paced story is easy to follow thanks to clear English supertitles.
As Arthur Miller once said: “The theater cannot disappear because it is the only art in which humanity confronts itself”.
We are situated in the living room and study of a country house with rustic finishes, from where we can see an exit that leads to the kitchen, another with stairs leading to the bedrooms, and a final one that reveals part of the lawn and the outdoors, through which all the characters in this story will enter and exit. In the study is the central character of this story, Benjamin Braxton, played by the magnificent Hamish Linklater, who through his gestures, the constant trembling of his hands, hi