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Theatre Journal 55.1 (2003) 154-156



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La Malasangre. By Griselda Gambaro. Repertorio Espanol, New York City. 5 February 2002.
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Repertorio Espanol offers a wonderful service to Off-Broadway by presenting contemporary and classic plays of the Latin American/Latino/Spanish theatre. They have produced a play by Griselda Gambaro, a contemporary Argentine playwright whose work is too rarely seen in the United States. The play, La malasangre (Bad Blood), debuted in [End Page 154] Buenos Aires in 1982 toward the end of the Dirty War—when nearly 30,000 citizens were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by the military government. The play is a brilliantly constructed chess game with characters who alternate between oppressor and oppressed. In contrasting scenes, Gambaro trenchantly displays the irony and cruelty of power relationships. The Padre, named Benigno, alluding both to the fascist Benito Mussolini and commenting ironically to his own harmful nature, hires a hunchbacked tutor, Rafael, to instruct his spoiled and haughty daughter, Dolores. The two young people eventually fall in love and plan their escape. However, the Madre informs the Padre of their stratagem. The Padre orders Rafael's death, and upon viewing his lifeless body, Dolores vows revenge. Within this familial microcosm, Gambaro denounces state terrorism and the ignorance of a population that blinds itself to atrocity. The play reminds us that though we cannot perfectly recapture the mood of 1980s Argentina, bloody and battered by dictatorship, we can, in the current world, still feel Argentina's pain as it undergoes yet another political, social, and economic crisis.

Though the production, by the Mexican director Alejandra Orozco, downplays the political for the personal, the many confrontations in the play strikingly display the power relationships. In order for the play to work dramatically, Dolores and Rafael must have a chemistry that bespeaks love and hate simultaneously. The actors, Anilu Pardo and Gonzalo Villanueva, perform with passion and conviction, making the relationship believable, and ultimately tragic. As the dramatic tension builds, one clearly senses the growing bond between these victims of a paternal/authoritarian regime.

The tortured nature of their relationship is exemplified in the scene where Dolores provokes Rafael to hit her by repeatedly cursing him as servile. After he does indeed strike her, she calls her father Benigno (played by Mauricio Bustamente, who [End Page 155] easily moves between the character's authoritative and comedic features, making Benigno a sadistic prankster). In a terrifying instance of dangerous games, she plays the role of Daddy's little girl while her father decides how to punish Rafael. They joke childishly with each other, with Dolores eventually sitting on her father's lap while he bounces her on his knee. The superficially frolicsome act horrifies with its sexual suggestion of incest and underlying violence. The tone of playfulness shifts abruptly to naked violence as Rafael is dragged away by the father's lackey, Fermin (Dario Tangelson), a creepy, fawning fellow. With a startling light change, Dolores alters expression and stares at her father, now cognizant of the real pain that she has effected.

The production offers many similarly vivid and tense scenes of cruelty and aggression. In one striking moment, Dolores dances with her intended fiancé, the slickly unctuous Juan Pedro de los Campos Dorados, whose name indicates his ridiculousness, while he gropes and fondles her. His sadistic character is captured convincingly by the attractive actor Gerardo Gudino. Dolores's father ignores this sexual assault. Further adding to the disturbing nature of the scene, the father orders Fermin to dance with Rafael, to humiliate the already victimized tutor. In addition, Dolores suffers in watching this decent man abused. The scene ends in a hellish, blackish red light, foreshadowing the blood that will soon run. The father, with his bright red jacket, angular face, and slim body, takes on the grotesque hue of a devil. Theatricality becomes a form of torture for Dolores, and perhaps, the audience.

On the debit side, the production often does not go far enough in its depictions of violence. Gambaro's dramaturgy is one of extremes. The terror often overwhelms in its intensity and precision, explaining...

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