Guanajuato Theatre: World-class Evening at the MIQ

One Friday each month is Theater Night at the Museo Icónografico. If the line for last Friday's performance in Spanish based on estadounidense David Mamet's The Duck Variations (!Patos! Historias Desgraznadas) was typical, arrive a little before 7pm to insure getting a ticket.

At the MIQ, The museum patio serves as the stage, with the audience sitting on two sides, so the audience is in an intimate setting close to the actors.

When Mamet wrote this two-character play, he was in his thirties, but already with a command of dialogue. Two old men sit in a park, talking about almost every subject under the sun. Somehow they keep bringing ducks (which neither know much about) into their conversation. So, even when the theme is death, the two couldn't be more alive, playing off each other

Bruno Ruiz adapted the work, in which he and Kaleb Osguera played the characters as young men. They worked together as if they were trapeze artists, both of them masters of physical theatre, timing, expression and their lines.

The set and props were simple and the lighting effective, with the visible, topical ending coming as a great surprise. Thanks to Carlos Vidaurri who arranges the theatre programs at the MIQ  and to the Mexico City team who brought this Cervantino-quality production to Guanajuato.

Cervantino Day 11 (evening): Murmurs at the State Auditorium after a torrential rain

About five minutes into Murmurs

The main character in her dream world / FIC41photos, Christa Cowrie

Even though I was wearing a red plastic poncho when I set out at seven, I arrived at Murmurs soaked to the knees, but Victoria and Aurelia Thierry's imaginative production was worth being caught in a downpour. This French production draws on evolving European circus traditions: physical theater, rapid changing of sets, exquisite timing, simple props, gymnastics, dance, the element of surprise, all coming together in this work born of psychological understanding combined with intelligence. No words, occasional music.

And all performed by one actress+one dancer+one gymnast, with an occasional supporting cast of several men dressed in gray and probably an equal number of technical helpers backstage.

Murmurs starts with the actress, surrounded by boxes, putting things in, taking them out in a haphazard way. Then comes the scene with the monster (made of greatly enlarged gauzy scraps from one of the boxes?). From then on, we see the humans backed by flimsy sets that have a reality naturalistic ones would not convey.

Better prepared than I was

Scary, funny, engrossing. As an articulate friend of mine was reduced to saying "Amazing!"

I agree. By the way, Victoria Thierry is Charlie Chaplin's daughter.