Review: THE CHUPACABRA CANTINA makes a statement (fun) at VSA North Fourth Arts Center

The women of Las Meganenas, a local troupe of storytellers, are showing their latest piece at the VSA North Fourth Arts Center: "The Chupacabra Cantina," a galvanizing expose on the imbalanced global structures of power that, like the vampiric Chupacabra of Mexican and Hispanic legend, suck the life out of local communities' shared heritage. Because theater is capable of turning rhetoric into dynamic human drama, this is a good medium to deliver such a complex message on behalf of the silenced populous. Playwright Soledad Hindi doesn't take all the dramatic opportunities offered by her medium, and chooses instead to pack her scenes with information so they play almost as lectures, but I'm nevertheless glad she's turned the lecture into art: This made a hard lesson into a fun night out.

The Chupacabra Cantina is a small fictional eatery set in nonfictional Tierra Amarilla, in northern New Mexico. Around the tables and bar, the locals make laid back and colorful chit-chat. The main question underlying their conversation regards the recent chupacabra attacks that have ruined local crops and livestock--how can they stop this vicious beast?
They take a roundabout way of answering that question: At the opening, the women are enjoying a game designed to "mock the chupacabra" with humor in the face of disaster. Their attitude is diligently upbeat, determined not to let the issue overbear their familial and good natured atmosphere. Therefore they begin their investigation of the chupacabra problem lightly, with a smattering of various topics--Palestinian farms, a Vatican endorsement of Monsanto, the multi-racial identity of the region...
These topics are interesting enough to lead the show along, and the cozy atmosphere makes the information easy to digest, which is good because they're served with a minimum of plot. A Fox News reporter comes in, to investigate--and ultimately give a butchered television report about--the chupacabra attacks, but her presence is less as an antagonist and more as a dialectical backboard by which the bartender (acted by playwright Hindi) and the other women can expound the play's various topics. The reporter isn't the only character who becomes a mere backboard for rhetoric and information--the play is full of these interactions, which act-out stiffly, like the reading of a FAQ sheet.
However, I don't count this stiffness as a blight. Sure, Hindi could have engaged dramatic activity a lot more, but this would've detracted from the scope of her message. By the second act, she's gradually, through the smattering of related topics, clarified her core issue which is (spoiler alert): The threat of monoculture agri-corporations on heritage crops and small-scale farms. And though there isn't much drama, the opportunities of theater aren't wasted: Characters become symbolic, play out old and new rituals, and behave as examples--driving home the play's ultimate, urgent message of stewardship.
Still, though the lack of drama may've been a conscious choice, director Alicia Lueras Maldonado should have made much more of the actors' bodies--long portions of the play stretched on with every character sitting down or behind the bar, as if the stage were a forbidding desert the characters were afraid to cross. One monologue, delivered by Iktemal Jaber, stood out as the model for the type of activity I would have liked to see: Jaber stood up and utilized a single scarf into nearly a dozen images that, delivered in evocative honesty, invested her story with moving meaning beyond words.
The Chubacabra Cantina doesn't languish despite this stillness, because the message is so vital and its delivery so authentic. The action that does take place has clearly been chosen carefully, as ritual, to sanctify the space. The most constant ritual was the music--the songstress Vivian Gelin played her guitar from start to finish, singing songs in English and Spanish (mostly Spanish)--adapted from pop culture and traditional tunes to include relevant lyrics. In her music, we are made to feel that perhaps this play isn't quite political statement that it seems, but rather only art--from people who value their core.

The Chupacabra Cantina will run March 10th through the 20th, at Albuquerque's North Fourth Theatre. Shows run Thursday through Sunday. Tickets are available via Hold My Ticket Box Office. Call 505-886-1251 or go online to holdmyticket.com.

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