Review: REFERENCES TO SALVADOR DALI MAKE ME HOT at Sound Theatre Company

Magical realism as a genre offers the potential to portray emotion with the dream-like counter-logic that better explains how an emotion feels, as compared to what a strictly realistic portrayal may be capable of. Losing a feeling of love in a lifelong commitment is a perfect example of the type of nightmare that may be better explained via anthropomorphic animals and celestial beings than via dry attempts at communication. But dreams and nightmares still require an internal logic and plausibility that, when lacking, can make the genre feel like an exercise.

In José Rivera's References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot, a lonely army wife, Gabriela (Pillar O'Connel), finds companionship in an anthropomorphized moon (Rolando Cardona-Roman) and her cat (Isabella Martinez) while she waits for her husband, Benito (also Cardona-Roman), to return from the Gulf War. Sound Theatre Company's production, directed by Colin Hovde, is enchanted and ambitious, but it struggles to convince us of the one thing the play depends on: that these two people were ever in love.

Rivera's Obie-winning script is a nonlinear folk tale with candid discussions about sex and passions. Gabriela is stuck in the dismal, dry landscape of Barstow, California, where she spends her days bored, and spends her nights taking astronomy classes. When the play begins, we’re introduced not to Gabriela but to two anthropomorphic, horny animals circling each other: domesticated Cat (Isabella Martinez) and wild Coyote (Jorge Chacon). These two very suddenly fall in lust, acting as Gabriela and Benito’s spiritual counterparts. Meanwhile, the moon has seduced Gabriela with his wit and knowledge of the arts, something Gabriela’s army-loving husband wouldn’t know anything about (at least anymore). Benito eventually comes home, expecting Gabriela to be as on board with the war as he is. Gabriela is dismayed by this version of her husband, a man she once knew to be quite taken with more wholesome, romantic things like the moon. With Hovde’s direction, O’Connel’s Gabriela and Cardona-Roman’s Benito are in clear conflict, but it lacks that undercurrent of lust and chemistry to give their dynamic another dimension.

Most of the show is Gabriela and Benito talking. In this staging, at times there is anger and fear. Occasionally, there is tenderness. But mostly, the tone is irritation. Cardona-Roman’s Benito has the wider range, with defensiveness, excitement, and lust imbued, but O’Connel’s Gabriela mostly comes off as exasperated. To the performers' credit, this is a tough script. But the language calls for more complexity in Gabriela’s yearning. Without eroticism, jokiness, or sweetness mixed in, the love doesn’t feel as potent, so the chemistry just is not there. The arguments never get bigger or smaller, so sudden pivots don't feel earned. The same flatness shows when Gabriela discovers something despicable Benito did in the war. Her response is a serious under-reaction to what should be the play's emotional earthquake. 

And then there’s the issue of Martin (Malik Cantu). His subplot is where the surreal ambiguity gets uncomfortable. This is more of a script issue. Martin is a tween boy who’s infatuated with Gabriela. Gabriela finds him bothersome, but messes with him and agrees to “sleep” with him – he’s convinced that she’s taken his virginity, though all they’ve done is laid together side by side. Martin reminds Gabriela of when she was young and first in love with Benito, so Benito is really just another metaphorical character like the Cat and Coyote, but how real Martin is is unclear, and that she’s playing into his advances at all feels creepy. 

The script is robust and complex, but at times it’s just confusing. For example, I bought Benito and the Coyote's common threads–the wildness and the masculinity–but the soft, coquettish Cat represents a privilege I never saw in Gabriela, who struggles with ennui and loneliness. Is the takeaway that she doesn't appreciate what she has? If so, that feels incongruous with the sympathy that the script engenders for her plight. 

There was a lot about this play that was approachable and compelling. The gigantic, dynamic celestial backdrop (set design by Burton Yuen) behind a smattering of domestic trappings (a refrigerator, a coffee pot, a bed) had a lovely push and pull visually that felt dreamy. Bookended by two, gigantic, graffiti-covered pillars, this set design had a very concentrated sense of place, while also feeling impossible to exist. Within the context of a magical-realism landscape, this really worked. 

Splitting time between the moon and Benito, Rolando Cardona-Roman’s performances are delightfully differentiated. His portrayal of the moon is curious, impish, and flirty, while his Benito is macho, gruff, and lost. Pilar O’Connel’s Gabriela definitely yearned for something grander, and her frustration and sorrow was believable, but her portrayal of Gabriela’s malaise called for more dynamism. Jorde Chacon’s Coyote was musky, and a perfect foil to Isabella Martinez’s slinky Cat. Malik Cantu’s wet-behind-the-ears Martin is wide-eyed and eager. Together, the ensemble is playful and dreamlike, each character standing in for something bigger, as they do in dreams. But a dream needs a dreamer, and O'Connel's Gabriela needed more complexity at its center.

References was funny, cruel, and at times confusing. As a play about a woman’s yearning, it needed more of a piquant undertone, for her to seem more turned-on, to create a more fullness to the show’s romance and, thus, more devastation in Gabriela and Benito’s disconnect. Audiences need to feel the fire that once burned in order to mourn its absence. References is a cool show, but it’s not a very hot show. 

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