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A Park in Our House
By Nilo Cruz
Produced by Victory Gardens and Teatro Vista
At Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater
2257 N. Lincoln Ave.
Chicago, IL
Tickets: 773-871-3000 or www.VictoryGardens.org , $20-$45
Tue-Thu at 7:30 p.m., Fri-Sat at 8:00 p.m., Sun at 3:00 p.m.
Running time is about 2 hours with one intermission
Through December 9, 2007
A Family Reawakening in Castro’s Cuba
Victory Gardens and Teatro Vista combine their talents once again to present the Midwestern premier of Pulitzer winning playwright Nilo Cruz’s A Park in Our House. The play recounts the slow moving story of a Cuban family circa 1970 as the introduction of a foreign visitor into their home causes a reawaken of dreams and hope. Cruz’s poetic piece is filled with symbolism that explores the life of one family and the physical and emotional deprivations that they suffer in the communist state. It pays homage to the nobility of the human spirit as it gently indicts the failures of Castro’s communist society.
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Lance Baker shines among the Equity cast as Dimitri, a Russian botanist who has finally succeeded in obtaining a cultural exchange visa. Cuba was not his goal, but anywhere other than the Soviet backwater where he lives is a place for his dreams to grow. Any physical or mental space other than the communist state of Cuba is where the dreams of the family can grow. Cruz’ distaste for Castro is deep, so he hammers the audience with symbols of the deformed island society. Hilario (Gustavo Mellado), the family patriarch and government bureaucrat, has corns and calluses on his feet. He does not take care of the foundation on which he stands just as the planning office where he works ignores its societal foundations. In his dreams the other bureaucrats are always attacking his spine, which holds him upright. A 14-year-old nephew (Bubba Weiler) has lost his voice from an undefined, government induced trauma; a brother (Joe Minoso) has put his art away in a shoebox. And on and on and on… There is a plot, but nothing ever actually happens.
To this reviewer A Park in Our House is a clear example of a production where the total effect is much less than the sum of the parts. There are some fine, though not uniformly so, performances. Samuel Ball’s stylized set is beautiful to look at, though it suggests a beach house more than decaying Havana. There is humor, though the show is generally slow-paced beyond the point of pain. And there are the ceaseless symbols: individually they are appealing, but somehow they don’t congeal into a coherent mass and the result is an unsubtle glop that is more trite than astute.
For theatergoers obsessed with seeing original work or those who live to bash Fidel Castro, A Park in Our House is probably worth the price. Others may find themselves, as I did, squirming in their seats.
SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED
Randy Hardwick
randyontheglobe@yahoo.com for comments
Date Reviewed: November 5, 2007
Jeff Recommended
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