Something may be getting lost in translation in the English-language version of Gustavo Ott’s Lírica. Originally written in 2010 in Ott’s native Spanish, it has been renamed Two Kids in the Universe in a production at Teatro Dallas. At its Nov. 3 premiere, the play never cohered into a convincing whole in part because it spends most of its 90 minutes telling rather than showing.
Blame also falls on director Mac Welch’s staging, with its clumsy shifts from melodramatic, dialogue-heavy scenes to philosophical musings to surreal elements signaled by sound effects by Claudia Jenkins and sudden lighting changes by Joshua Manning.
Ott, who became artistic director of Teatro Dallas earlier this year, was inspired to write Lírica by a true story: a murder in which the sons of the killer and his victim are elementary school classmates. The 9-year-olds are depicted in only a couple of scenes, by the women playing their mothers. From the start, the grownups are headed toward confrontation.
April (Caitlin Galloway) arrives at the school angry. She wants Principal Ramirez (Audrey Medrano) to expel or transfer the son of her husband’s murderer, claiming her boy is being terrorized by him. (Later, the accusation is dropped without explanation.)
The principal has the equally ticked off Norway (Victoria Angelina Cruz), the killer’s wife, waiting in an adjacent room. She has problems of her own, even beyond the obvious ones.
It takes 20 minutes for Two Kids to reveal its premise as Ramirez tries to talk sense into the ranting April. It takes even longer to find out why the principal, dancing around what she knows about the largely unseen title characters, is so intent on bringing the mothers together.
Tapping furious indignation, Galloway and Cruz create believable characters even as they juggle Ott’s mouth-filling flurry of words. Changing their voices and demeanors, they transform into each other’s sons on a mat in one corner of Latino Cultural Center’s black box stage otherwise taken up by the principal’s office.
Medrano has the tougher job of portraying Ramirez, caught in the middle as she tries to negotiate a truce for the sake of the kids. On opening night, it took her a while to find her footing as she sometimes spoke too softly to be clearly heard and hesitated in delivering some of her lines.
Ott’s ambitious script veers into metaphors ― earthquakes that rock the principal’s office, the extinction of the Neanderthals ― and are identified as such in case the audience misses them. He also takes time to argue for the power of poetry.
With all the explanatory talk, even when the audience can see what’s going on, the playwright’s points about the innocence of childhood, about what we give up when we turn into adults, become heavy-handed. A subtler approach might have resulted in a more satisfying drama.
Details
Through Nov. 19 at 2600 Live Oak St. $15-$25. teatrodallas.org.
