Review: Daphne Rubin-Vega is Chilling and Endearing in EMPANADA LOCA

Those savory meat pies carefully prepared by Mrs. Lovett with fresh filling supplied by her upstairs neighbor Sweeny Todd are served up Washington Heights style in playwright/director Aaron Mark's delectably chilling EMPANADA LOCA.

Daphne Rubin-Vega, best known for her sexy rocker turns in RENT and THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW, is completely captivating in a solo performance that requires her to sit perfectly still for most of its 100 minutes, looking straight out at the audience as she tells her weird and wonderful tale.

As the play begins, the theatre is completely dark for just long enough to introduce a sense of uneasiness. When Rubin-Vega's presence can finally be determined, she's a shadowy figure in a soft, but threatening voice.

We're in the abandoned subway tunnel that a woman named Dolores calls home. Although she's naturally wary of the unseen stranger who has wandered into her domain, she's also hungry for company.

Things were going well for Dolores years ago when she was a 21-year-old at Hunter College majoring in urban planning. But family tragedy and a drug-dealing boyfriend lead her to thirteen years in prison, where she learned massage techniques to help her gain protective favor with the toughest of inmates.

Once out of prison she finds herself alone in a gentrified upper Manhattan, where she tries setting up an illegal massage business in the basement of a failing empanada shop. When the landlord tries kicking them out... Well, as the program says, the play is inspired by the legend of Sweeney Todd.

Wearing a dark hoodie and sitting atop a massage table, Rubin-Vega's dimly-lit face is all that can be seen for much of the evening, but her storytelling is riveting, especially when the tender innocence of her purring voice describes the most gruesome of details with childlike wonder.

There's an endearing quality to the way her Dolores introduces us to characters like the shop's pothead owner, his 16-year-old transsexual employee, the Brooklyn hip landlord and an assortment of others, like the host really wants to entertain her visitor.

With a kicker of a finish, EMPANADA LOCA is a terrifically creepy tale, with Daphne Rubin-Vega a macabre delight.

Photo: Monique Carboni