Review: Corazón de Manzana

Posted on Monday, August 29

Corazón de Manzana
By Alexander Perry

Opening this weekend at the DCA Storefront Theater, Mortar Theater’s Corazón de Manzana follows the harrowing journey of three mothers and daughters as they become entangled in the little-known femicide occurring in Juarez, Mexico.  Though the production walks a fine line between poetry and lecture, it is ultimately successful in inscribing theatrical ghosts on the audience’s conscience.

Corazón de Manzana is a jigsaw of a play, containing three loosely interlocking narratives.  Callie (Stephanie Stroud) is a down-on-her-luck mother to the young and vibrant Ariana (Morgan McNaught).  The pair have recently moved into her affluent sister Denise’s (Yadira Correa) home.  A cryptic call for help found scrawled on a mutilated Barbie doll birthday gift for Ariana triggers the scholarly Denise to investigate the rampant killings sweeping through Juarez, Mexico.  In Juarez, the seven-year old Mazi (Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel) struggles to go to sleep as her mother (Erica Cruz Hernandez) leaves to work the night shift.  She is coaxed into an ominous, dream-like journey by the mysterious Ferdy (Joshua Volkers) who offers fantastic promises.  Far away in Canada, Sara (Katie Herbert) navigates the perils of high school including the thrill of new love with fellow honor student Jake (Ethan Weiss), the pain of vicious teenage girls, and the watchful eye of a seemingly overprotective mother (Ilyssa Fradin).  The narrative flips back and forth between these three stories, gradually tightening the connection between them until the final climactic scene reveals all.

Mazi’s part of the journey possesses an arresting, tragic beauty.  The performances by Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel, Erica Cruz-Hernandez and Joshua Volkers are powerful and linger with the viewer.  The scenes between Gonzalez-Cadel’s sympathetic Mazi and Volkers’ sinister Ferdy are frighteningly intimate and heartbreaking, especially in a few bursts of theatrical choreography.  Erica Cruz-Hernandez’s final scene is staggering; it features the explosion of a mother’s grief, anger and defiance that does more to further the play’s agenda than all the expository facts packed into the script’s dialogue.  If for nothing else than this slice of the story, the production is recommended.  Similarly, the mother-daughter-boyfriend dynamic between Ilyssa Fradin, Katie Herbert and Ethan Weiss is thoroughly convincing and perfectly captures the butterflies of teenage love and rebellion.  A feeling of dread mounts throughout this story as it is slowly revealed how the teenage Sara’s journey is related to Mazi’s.  When the final revelation does come, it is like the fairy suitor’s courtship of Mazi: the tragic fulfillment of something we knew was coming but were desperately hoping against.

Framing these two stories are the investigative efforts of Denise and Callie.  The performances in this part of the story are skillful as well: Morgan McNaught’s Ariana is a playful, proud girl bursting with life; Stephanie Stroud’s Callie is a funny but dry, hard-working woman doing the best she can; and Yadira Correa’s Denise is a professional scholar tied up in the politics of tenure.  While the acting is superb in the character-driven scenes, some of the scripted dialogue feels a little bit too on-the-head and didactic when dealing with the Juarez investigation, like bits of text taken from an academic lecture.  At the same time, this is a play with a purpose: to incite the audience into action in order to stop the killings in Mexico.

While these bits of text are meant to give background to the tragic story of Mazi, they seem unnecessary since the poetry of the piece is much more evocative and compelling.  Fulfilling a similar purpose but used much more effectively are the silhouetted voices of Mazi and Ariana’s dolls.  Working variously as soothing counselors, antagonistic consciences, and political commentators, the dolls come to life throughout the play.  Perhaps because of their fantastical nature, having these dolls provide a political and sociological perspective on the Juarez killings works much more naturally than forcing the same text into an awkward dialogue between human speakers.  When the production engages in this kind of poeticism, it thrives.

Finally, it should be noted that the play is bilingual: scenes between Mazi and her mother are entirely in Spanish.  This is a daring move and certainly helps immerse the audience in Mazi’s journey.

 

Corazón de Manzana runs through September 25^th at the DCA Storefront Theatre.
Photo © John W. Sisson Jr.