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| Two Sisters and a Piano (Dave Hastings) |
Two Sisters And A
Piano
Theater Schmeater
Through October 6, 2018
A mournful, poetic semi-historical production is at Theater
Schmeater. Two Sisters And A Piano,
by Nilo Cruz, is closing this weekend and it is a lovely work that you should
try to see before it’s over.
The two sisters are Maria Celia, a writer whose work was
deemed to controversial and provocative for the Cuban government around the
time of Perestroika in the Soviet Union, and Sofia, a younger piano-playing
woman who gets stuck in isolated detention with her sister. These sisters are
beautifully portrayed by Marquicia
Dominguez and Aviona Rodriguez Brown.
Their trapped isolation is suffocating. The pathos is
palpable. Anyone who visits is a potential threat or someone sent to trick them
to reveal themselves as violating terms of their house arrest.
Even while they know the dangers, even “bad” strangers are
better than no visits at all… When a lieutenant (Roger Estrada) comes to visit, repeatedly, he could be a threat in
any number of ways. He is clearly enamoured of Maria Celia. Will he attack her
sexually? Will he turn her in for sedition? What is his motive? What does he
want?
Maria Celia’s dilemma is heightened because her husband and
the sister’s father have both gotten out of the country and are trying to get
Maria Celia and Sofia out as well. But all the letters back and forth are
subject to being read by authorities and they can only write in a kind of code.
The officer brings all the letters to show her he knows all about her.
Even a piano tuner (Joshua
Holguin) could be a spy. Sofia yearns so much for love that she even has an
imaginary romance with an unseen man next door whom she can only hear moving
about! So a real man in the person of a piano tuner is a special opportunity.
Jose Amador
directs this piece with emotion and deliberate pacing. Introducing musical
interludes with music sets a tone and a mood.
The sisters’ devotion to each other is very apparent, and
the actors care about their characters. This is a play in one room with a
“small” plot, but it packs an emotional wallop and gives the audience a taste
of what it might be like to be locked up at “home” all day long, never knowing
who to trust.
This piece reminds us of our extraordinary privileges to
object to and openly protest our government’s actions. This is not the kind of
freedom available to most of the rest of the world. Reminders of our freedoms
seems especially necessary right about now.
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