Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Commemorating Latina icons on their own terms: GIVE ME CARMELITA TROPICANA! at Soho Rep and MERCEDES, PART 1 at BAM

• By drediman
• December 9, 2024
• No Comments

Over the past week or so, I came across two decidedly avant-garde production that commemorated Latina icons on their own defiant terms. As per usual, read on for my further thoughts.

GIVE ME CARMELITA TROPICANA!
Soho Rep
Through December 22

This past week, I said goodbye to Walkerspace — Soho Rep’s longtime home in Tribeca — which over the years has consistently played host to some of New York’s most cutting-edge theater. Soho Rep’s final production at the cosy venue is Give Me Carmelita Tropicana! (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) by storied performance artist Alina Troyano and and critically acclaimed playwright (and Troyano’s former student) Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Appropriate, Purpose). Featuring both of its creators, the fever dream of a play tells the heady fictitious tale of Jacobs-Jenkins’ attempt at purchasing the intellectual property that is the titular Carmelita Tropicana — Troyano’s primary alter ego — upon hearing of Troyano’s plan to retire the “character”. Having none of it, Carmelita throws a tantrum that sends both Jacobs-Jenkins and Troyano to Phantasmagoria, the fantastical realm where all of Troyano’s creations reside (!). As directed by Eric Ting, the broadly acted production giddily rides the wave of the zany plot (there’s more than a passing hint of The Wizard of Oz in there), paying homage not only to Troyano — who brilliantly and gamely plays herself in the play — and her fertile imagination, but also to the very act of presenting theater. As such, Give Me Carmelita Tropicana! is an ideal and ultimately emotional swan song to a venue that has housed so many striking instances of groundbreaking and uncompromising productions (e.g., Annie Baker’s adaptation of Uncle Vanya, Jacobs-Jenkins’ breakout play An Octoroon, Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Fairview, Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play, Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s Public Obscenities). Indeed, the play’s closing monologue drives the nail in the coffin, gorgeously articulating the ephemeral nature of live performance while effusing over the white hot memories created while partaking in it.

MERCEDES, PART 1
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Closed

I first encountered Modesto “Flako” Jimenez in the midst of the pandemic, during which I attended Taxilandia, an adventurous “show” in which he audaciously turned cab driving into a performance genre. During the immersive performance, Flako waxed lyrical about Bushwick as he took captive backseat audience members on an evocative and deeply personal tour of his childhood neighborhood. In his latest creation Mercedes, Part 1 (RECOMMENDED) — an offering of this year’s Next Wave Festival courtesy of the Brooklyn Academy of Music — the Dominican-born theater-maker focuses his attention to his grandmother Mercedes, who raised him upon his arrival from the Dominican Republic (in an act role-reversal, Flako eventually took it upon himself to care for Mercedes in her latter years, during which she suffered from dementia). To be sure, the endeavor is just as out-of-the-box as Taxilandia — Mercedes, Part 1 at BAM Fisher is a laid back multidisciplinary experience that organically meshes immersive theater, detailed installation (a recreation of Mercedes Bushwick apartment features prominently in the experience, complete with plenty of primary artifacts from Mercedes’ life), thoughtfully filmed documentary, and even a little bit of arts and craft. Despite its unconventional and non-linear construction, it all ultimately somehow amounts to a richly-drawn impression of its subject and the impact she had not only on her family, but also the larger Latine community in which she lived. Moderated by delightful, hospitable team of actors — who lovingly portray family members and engage in improvised conversation throughout — the experience may confound fans of more traditional forms of theater. But if you’re willing to invest yourself fully, it’s the kind of experience gives back as much as you put in, if not more.