Review: CEBOLLAS at DCPA is a Hit and a Miss

As the youngest of four siblings, I understand the value of family relationships, especially when catastrophe strikes. It is in these moments that familial ties are strengthened. Whatever experience you traverse with your siblings, it is sure to leave you closer than you were before. That is unless, of course, you're transporting a dead body across state lines. In this premiere piece at DCPA, Cebollas test the bonds of sisterhood unlike any before.

Written by Leonard Madrid and directed by Jerry Ruiz, Cebollas tells the story of youngest sister Yolie who at almost 9 months pregnant discovers the dead body of her lover and baby daddy in her New Mexico home. The problem: he's got a wife of his own back in Denver. In an attempt to keep her extramarital affair off the record, Yolie persuades her two sisters, Celia and Tere, to assist in driving the body themselves back to Denver, sneaking into his home in the middle of the night, putting him in the bed for his wife to find, and getting out. As the three sisters set out on their "quest", they are still unprepared for the chaos and discomforting realizations to come along the way.

I won't lie, the morbidity in this play is not something I was ready for, but that isn't to say it was lacking a compelling story. Overall, the plot is outrageous enough to work more convincingly on the big screen compared to the theatrical stage. There is a different suspension of disbelief that happens in the movie theater that for some things does not work in this artistic medium. I think what I found most jarring were conditions that were seemingly not thought through with regard to the circumstances at play: rigamortis, the smell, the law, just to name a few. I am also not inclined to believe that if my sibling had a dead body in their house that my first instinct would be to transport that body across state lines, but every family is different.

Jamie Ann Romero as Yolie, Xochitl Romero as Celia, and Zuleyma Guevara as Tere work well together as a sisterly, comedic unit. There is chemistry between the three with a touch of tension. But perhaps given the fact that there is no real "lesson learned" or "come to Jesus" moment of reckoning, it's hard to believe the given circumstances surrounding their portrayals. It's also unclear where they go from here once the story is over. If there were some level of accountability for not just Yolie, but also Celia and Tere (who are now implicated in a crime), their relationship may translate more clearly. But those issues have more to do with the writing than they do the acting chops of these three confident actors.

To borrow a thought from everyone's favorite ogre, Cebollas - which means onions in Spanish - has layers. Though, some of the layers are not as pungent as others. In a story where the main plot line is so outrageous and audacious, every other layer has to be just as piercing. For me, the work doesn't go far enough to convince the audience of the problem nor the solution to the problem. I stand by my original thought, however, that this story would thrive on the big screen, though perhaps after a few rewrites.

Cebollas runs at DCPA through March 10, 2024.

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