Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – In an act of supreme empathy, the sensational Arturo Luís Soria channels mommy dearest in NI MI MADRE

• By drediman
• September 1, 2021
• No Comments

Last weekend, I attended Arturo Luís Soria’s solo show Ni Mi Madre, which welcomes back in-person performances at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, one of the edgier of the Off-Broadway theater companies (note that the show is also accessible via streaming). Although he played a relatively minor ensemble role in The Inheritance on Broadway, Mr. Soria was standout stage presence in the sprawling two-part gay epic. With his new play at the Rattlestick, Mr. Soria is able to show off both his writing skills, as well as the full extent of his acting abilities, and boy is he sensational.

Ni Mi Madre is a beguiling play, a sort of prismatic, lightly-veiled autobiographical depiction of the actor/playwright’s challenging relationship with his larger-than-life Brazilian mother, Bete. The thing is, the play is told from the perspective of Bete, whom Mr. Soria channels in light drag, and it turns out to be a supreme act of empathy and forgiveness. Although Bete may claim that tough love was the driving mantra for her upbringing of her gay son, the objective events of the play make the case that her treatment of young Arturo bordered on abusive. Mr. Soria goes further up the chain, suggesting that this aggressive approach to child rearing may have been sparked by Bete’s own troublesome relationship with her mother (Mr. Soria’s grandmother). Thankfully, in final assessment, the work doesn’t shy away from the complexities of abusive behavior.

The play packs in a lot of content and nuance in just about an hour, and Mr. Soria responds with a vivacious, highly physical performance that seizes the stage with abandon and embraces the play’s dual purpose as both a tribute to mommy dearest, as well as a cathartic exorcism of his conflicted memories of his childhood. The tour de force performance is a bit of a hat trick, dazzling in its rapid-fire delivery and quicksilver shifts in tone. The production has been sensually directed by Danilo Gambini, who capitalizes on the play’s ritualistic aspects by staging it literally on a pungently-designed alter to the feminine mystique.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

NI MI MADRE
Off-Broadway, Play / In-person & streaming
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
1 hour (without an intermission)
Through September 19