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Nilo Cruz revels in the life of the body.
The poetry of the senses swells throughout his works, from the wistful longing of ``A Park in Our House,'' and the pulse-pounding tension of ``Night Train to Bolina'' to the sultry heat of ``Anna in the Tropics,'' the play that made him famous as the first Latino to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama.
``Lorca in a Green Dress,'' now in its California premiere at the Renegade Theatre Experiment, also savors the way colors tickle the eye, the way sounds lick the ear. Alas, too often here Cruz's earthy beauty gets lost in the abstractions of this surreal memory play, a fever dream on the death of the great Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. Despite RTE's brave production, this deeply symbolic work strains under the weight of its heavy metaphors.
Director Ed Trujillo bathes the set in a ghostly green light that instantly establishes the fertile imagery of the play. Lorca awakes after his death at the hands of the Fascists in 1936 Granada to find himself trapped in the anteroom of his own subconscious, stuck in a limbo between life and what comes after.
While the text blooms with Cruz's usual lush lyricism, there's also a self-conscious, almost Pirandellian, quality to the dialogue that undercuts the show's intensity. The interactions between Lorca (a committed turn by Andres Sinohui) and the manifestations of himself he encounters in purgatory, such as Lorca in a Green Dress (a sly Kevin Kelly), the poet's homosexual identity, and Lorca as a boy in bicycle pants (Antonio Viramontes), can feel stilted. Each character represents an aspect of the poet's being, but the interactions never cut very deep.
The collective Lorca repeatedly re-enacts the poet's death scene and recaps the details of his life, but the point remains muddled. Many in the cast are not up to the rigors of poetry made flesh, and the flamenco dance interludes feel tacked on. Only rarely, such as in the flirtation between Sinohui and Kelly, does the production pulse with electricity.
Yet nothing diminishes the fact that RTE certainly lives up to its name with ``Lorca,'' making its mark as a little theater company willing to chase the high of new and difficult work.
`Lorca in a Green Dress'By Nilo Cruz
The upshot A deeply symbolic journey through the mind of the great Spanish poet that strains under the weight of its heavy metaphors.
Where The Renegade Theatre Experiment, Hoover Theater, 1635 Park Ave., San Jose
When 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays
Running time just under 2 hours, one intermission
Through July 30
Tickets $18-$20; (408) 351-4440 or go to http://www.renegadetheatre.com/
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