Theaterwork and Magical Realism: Nilo Cruz’s A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
From June 13-June 22, 2008, Theaterwork will present Nilo Cruz’s adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez short story, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (AVOM) at the James A. Little Theater (1060 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe on the campus of the New Mexico School for the Deaf).
Written in the 1950s (Leaf Storm and Other Stories, 1955), AVOM is an exemplar of Garcia Marquez’s magical realism, a style in which the irrational and inexplicable are accepted as casually as is ordinary experience. Such an approach seeks the “magic that exists in every day reality.” Cruz openly acknowledges his debt to “Master Marquez” when discussing the atmosphere he attempted to create in AVOM: “Like Garcia Marquez, I make use of magical realism in my plays, although I call it realism that is magical” (www.childrenstheatre.org, 2002).
Nilo Cruz has not slavishly followed the text of Garcia Marquez’s fable. He has added the children Momo and Fefe, made La Luna (the moon) a central character, added music by Nicholas Kitsopoulus, and softened the satire of institutional religion in the original.
Momo and Fefe are the son and daughter of Pelayo and Elisenda. Though the bedraggled mysterious stranger who crash-lands at their home cannot speak, the children “can see his words by looking in his eyes.” Their parents cannot do so, and they act in a contrary, adult manner. Elisenda, who believes the stranger may be an angel sent to save their ill third child or he may be the Angel of Death, worries. Pelayo, a decent man who looks at the old man with enormous wings as his meal ticket out of poverty, cages him and charges the curious villagers admission to view Afar, the name Momo and Fefe give to the celestial drop-in. The priests and even the rational Doctor Don Galante all have reason to declare the stranger an angel. In fact, Afar becomes the symbol of what all the other characters want him or need him to be. He is “the catalyst to bring out the best and worst in each character.”
AVOM has received mixed reviews over the past six years. Nilo Cruz’s adaptation was commissioned and first performed by Minneapolis’s distinguished Children’s Theatre. This production stressed the faith and imagination of Momo and Fefe and the traditional timeless element of a fable (www.childrenstheatre.org, 2002). Variety was harsh in its analysis of AVOM: “The author attempts to appeal to younger and older audiences simultaneously…. Nilo Cruz’s adaptation never takes flight…. Ultimately, this is a work that is too pretentious for kids and too simplistic for adults, a stab at magical realism that is neither magical nor real” (www.variety.com, 2005). In a more tempered review, Cruz’s work is praised for being a “warm, folkloric, child friendly fable” with “delightful and entertaining songs” and a “storybook setting.” However, the elements of the narrative and the stagecraft are “not organic to the play” and “(they) misdirect our (the audience’s) attention away from the weighty matters” the play introduces. The work does not resolve “the conflicting intentions of the author” (Bob Rendell, www.talkinbroadway.com, 2008). Even in reviews that are mostly raves, some criticism of AVOM’s competing demands are noted: “It (AVOM) was so compelling and beautiful that it completely captured my imagination.” However, as a “children’s play with its colorful costumes and delightful music,” it is at odds with “the melancholy, adult-oriented tone” (www.lasplash.com, 2008).
In an interview at Theaterwork Studio (3201 Richards Avenue) on May 20, 2008, David Olson discussed his conception of Cruz’s play in both philosophical and practical terms. David Olson argues that Nilo Cruz has written a play “of great simplicity with color and texture about solitude—What causes it, How we work through it, and How we can take something positive from our experience of it.” Indirectly addressing the critics who question what they perceive as the clashing, shifting styles and tones of AVOM, David posits that children “know about loss and turmoil and the fear of the stranger who is too strange. (Yet children) can reach across barriers they don’t recognize” and act with directness and wisdom. Far from ignoring the stark polarities in life, Cruz’s employment of music underscores in a very Colombian way the contrast between the lively rhythms and the text that is often a lament about lost love. Olson is attracted to the author’s desire to “embrace the world, warts and all.”
AVOM is not a cynical play but rather a contemplation of the meanings of love. During Theaterwork’s 2004 production of Nilo Cruz’s Lorca in a Green Dress, David got to spend time with the author and noted a telling anecdote when they visited the church at Chimayo. After a long, contemplative time alone in the Sanctuario, the Cuban exile came to the back of the church with tears in his eyes and told David: “I must write about this.” Cruz’s embracing of experience with an “open heart that lets life flow in and out” and that is “very Latin” is precisely what Olson tries to recreate in his production of AVOM.
David Olson also attempts to create in the play’s physical aspects the same simplicity that animates the text of AVOM: “I wanted my production to be like a pop-up book and have my actors—all of whom are masked—be puppet-like.” With his usual attention to the tiniest detail, David has designed a physical production that he described as “tropical whimsy” with props that are all hand-made from recycled materials, often with input from the actors themselves: A ten-year old cast member whose part requires that he carry box of prayers to the presumed angel approached director with a bit of wisdom worthy of Solomon: “If I were writing a letter to an angel, I’d write it on the inside of an oyster shell and close the shell and put a ribbon around it. I’m going to need a bigger box to hold the letters.” It is this involvement and thoughtful exchange of actor, director, production staff, and audience that is David’s ultimate goal in all his work. His young actor now has a larger box, full of idiosyncratic and inspired letters to Afar. David singles out for special praise his production team of Richard Gonzales (props), Deborah Kruhm (costumes), and Jack Sherman (jack-of-all-trades).
In a final note on A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, David Olson wants to “tell a sweet, good story” that reveals that “kids know darkness” and that “those venal, hapless people one sees occasionally wandering the aisles of Wal-Mart are looking for an ‘object of desire’ to make life ‘better, prettier, fuller.’” Olson’s production is directed to children in the company of adults with his vibrant design and the “lovely, funny, goofy, charming, and very Colombian” music suggesting a Fiesta. All Latin groups, most especially the poor, “dance through the night in face of the struggle of life” and “laugh in the face of hunger by shouting it down.” This is where David Olson is headed (and wishes to take his audiences) in his production of AVOM.
I eagerly look forward to Founder and Artistic Director of Theaterwork David Olson’s production of A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. Beginning his company in 1970 as Teatro Laboratorio de Bogotá and then as Cherry Creek Theater/Theaterwork in Minnesota, Olson brought his alternative theater company to Santa Fe twelve years ago and has produced a number of first-rate and memorable plays. He believes in the communal and regenerative nature of theater: “Theater is a gathering place…a place of stories, ideas, discovery and dialogue.” It is also a “place of character…that builds character!” (www.theaterwork.org.). David Olson strives, finally, to create a theater that “is an alternative to stasis as well as to consumer theater.” In tackling Cruz’s AVOM, he embraces with energy and precision the same artistic and entertainment goals that inspired him over forty years ago in Bogotá.
AVOM will be performed on June 13, 14, 19, 20, and 21 at 7:30 P.M. and on June 15 & 22 at 2 P.M. General admission is $10; a child’s admission is $5.
For reservations and further information, phone (505) 471-1799.
