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A while back, before we got strep throat from making out with ten-year-olds, we were at the Capitol Hill Arts Center for the opening night performance of Cloud Tectonics, the first play of their 2005-2006 theatre season. This piece has a lot going for it: it's written by José Rivera, who has several other great plays up his sleeve, as well as an Oscar nomination for the screenplay of The Motorcycle Diaries (watch for his script on another journey film, the upcoming version of On the Road); the set is extensive and well-designed; all the performances (by Todd Licea, Jennifer Faulkner, and Ray Gonzalez) are strong and nuanced. And yet, the play didn't entirely work for us. What the dilly, yo?
Cloud Tectonics primarily takes place on a rainy night in Los Angeles when a very pregnant hitchhiker (Faulkner) gets a ride from an LAX employee (Licea), who takes her back to his house and magical realism-related wackiness ensues. We're a big fan of the MR (despite not being Latin), and there's some great Themes being tackled here: endless love, the evolution of sex over time, the existence of magic in an age of quantum physics. Admittedly, the moving monologue that closes the piece had us in tears, but then again, we are big babies and cry at just about anything.
Still, the plot was a bit too drawn out, and some of the dialogue seemed incongruent with the characters---while we appreciated the truthfulness of the "guy talk" between Licea and Gonzalez, we didn't buy that Gonzalez's Nelson, a gung-ho army grunt, would wax poetically on a woman's womb. We think that our companion for the evening (who is, on occasion, rather wise and well-spoken), best summed up the play when he remarked that when an audience comes to a realization before the characters, there's a "connotation of profundity that's really not there." And no amount of magical realism and suspended disbelief can fix that. Rumor is that Rivera is adapting this play for the screen (though we'll believe it when it's up on IMDB); let's hope he tightens the script in screenplay form.
Before we end this review, we must make mention of one patron of the arts who really annoyed us. While it is true that the theatre tends to attract pretentious people---and that far too often we fall well within that category---there was one member of the audience opening night who put us to shame. This individual felt the need to laugh loudly and hard (going so far as to put his head on his knees) just so everyone would know he got all the jokes. At the play's end, he started the standing ovation, more for attention than to applaud the actors for their work. He stuck around for the talk-back with the cast and crew, sitting behind the rest of the remaining crowd, so that we'd all turn around and look at him when he made his myriad pompous comments (including comments on other comments, like "excellent point!"). We were left to wonder exactly who the hell this mystery man was, since obviously he thought himself to be Very Important. Attention Sir: Not everything is about you, especially when you're not the one on stage. For that, Douchebag McGee, Seattlest salutes you.
Cloud Tectonics runs Thursdays to Saturdays at 7:30pm
Sunday matinees at 2pm until December 17th
Tickets are $18 in advance, $20 at the door
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I cried at March of the Penguins, too.