The Toronto Theatre Review: Tarragon Theatre’s El Terremoto

By Ross

The Latin music and the birds chirping draw us into the scene, that is, before the tremor sounds blow their nose all around us. We feel the vibrations throughout our bodies as we sit up and take notice of Tarragon Theatre‘s compelling but ultimately disconnecting El Terremoto, written with an earnest determination to engage by playwright Christine Quintana (Someone Like You; As Above). “Why do you get so tense?“, one caring neighbor asks the oldest of three sisters, Luz, portrayed by Mariló Núñez (Aluna’s La Communion), as she busies herself preparing for a sweet birthday party that no one really seems to want to be at, beyond a few outsiders. And it’s no wonder, with the energy that exists at the core of this half-interesting, half-disjointed play that is trying to tell us a lot of things, without having a stable foundation to stand on.

Directed with an unfocused vision of constant movement by Guillermo Verdecchia  (Tarragon’s The Jungle), the fault lines appear way before the foundations of this familial home are shaken to its ghostly roots. A grandmother, Abuela, played with heart and nuance by Rosalba Martinni (Nightwood/Aluna’s The Solitudes) stands before us, paying dear homage to the lost parents of these three Jurado sisters who will come together like a different kind of terremoto. The set-up sizzles with possibility, but somewhere along the road to reconciliation, which is clearly the desired outcome in this messy play, too many inauthentic cracks and travels take place for one to fully engage with these three. Based on the way these sisters argue and attack one another, the faultlines that become visible from the onset make me care more for those poor souls who hang around hoping for some breadcrumbs of love and affection. A connection that is in short honest supply in this family’s East Vancouver home.

It’s been twenty years since the parents of these three died suddenly in an automobile accident, but rather than bringing them together, the crash has only made them more fractured and distant. Núñez’s Luz tries with all her anxious might to hold and keep the family unit working, even as she forgets to care for her own self along the way. She needles and micromanages those who have come together, pushing them away and reaching out for them like a desperate yoyo. The middle sister, Rosa, portrayed conflictually by Miranda Calderon (Stratford’s Birds of a Kind), is clearly the mess of the family, lashing out relentlessly at almost everyone who looks her way, including the man who got away (maybe luckily), Henry, dutifully portrayed by an engaging Michael Scholar Jr. (Alameda’s The Refugee Hotel). Like a lot of this play, the relationships are clear from the very beginning, leaving little to fully understand except maybe why one would travel across town, and kayak across dangerous waters to see, only to be told to go home with a wave of a messed up wrist. And leave without question. That exit didn’t make any emotional sense, like a lot of the comings and goings in their home.

Shooting back shots that taste like lost youth, the birthday party of the late arriving youngest sibling, Lina, played with an air of disconnected desperation by Margarita Valderrama (Roseneath’s Meet Cute), along with her well-meaning and lovestruck partner, Tash, engagingly well played by Caolán Kelly (Stratford’s Hamlet-911), pull us into the dynamics of the family, and because of Tash’s openness to the engagement, we can’t help but notice that the structural ideals of the play make us want to lean in and hold on for support through their trauma. Yet somewhere along the road, past a failed and ignored proposal to Luz by the family’s neighbor, Omar, played compassionately by Sam Khalilieh (Studio180’s Stuff Happens), this dramatic comedy tries with an almost too diligent force to throw us off balance. It shows us its complicated value while never feeling completely true, all before the interval earthquake envelopes us. It’s a tremor of epic proportions, felt by all, that nearly destroys the city of Vancouver, taking down bridges and buildings in an almost unimaginable way, and leaving us wondering how this will throw them off their destructive combative course.

On a well-crafted set, designed by Shannon Lea Doyle (Soulpepper’s Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train), with distinct costuming by Fernando Maya Meneses (NAC’s Nigamon/Tunai), strong lighting by Michelle Ramsay (Theatre Rusticle’s The Tempest), a sometimes clever projection design by Samay Arcentales Cajas (Native Earth’s Where the Blood Mixes), and an environmentally powerful sound design by Alejandra Nuñez (Two Birds/Common Boots’s Apocalypse Play), El Terremoto moves with frantic supernatural (and unnatural) movement forward, delivering the message that nothing really matters, “so everything matters.” So when the doors fly forward and the aftershock releases the parental visuals by Monica Garrido Huerta (lemonTree Creations’s Private Eyes) and Juan Carlos Velis (Alameda’s The Refugee Hotel), we work hard at staying connected to this dysfunctional family. Because we want to see understanding and reconciliation, even with all the acts of inconsistency.

Their urgency in their manic movements, decision-making, and sparring never feel organic or honest, even as the actors work hard to find honest connections with one another. But only in the outsiders do we find the much-needed thread of connectivity. Kelly’s Tash, a beautiful creation that could have easily been a stock figure, finds the formula of play that unpacks the complications of feeling love with a wide-eyed honest observance. They register, that even with the strong feelings attached, this family is too much. The work to find stable connection that feels honest is elusive and probably not possible. I wanted them to find unity and some sort of authentic understanding, but the aftershock of the play El Terremoto at Tarragon Theatre was of sad disbelief.