What We’re Seeing: “La Golondrina” at Repertorio Español
“A tumultuous, exhausting plea for understanding and reparation between two seeming strangers"
(Photo by Michael Palma Mir.)
In Spanish playwright Guillem Clua’s “La Golondrina,” now playing in rep at Manhattan’s Repertorio Español, facades of comfort are hammered away in a tumultuous, exhausting plea for understanding and reparation between two seeming strangers.
There’s Ms. Amelia, a meticulous and well-respected singing coach, and Ramon, a young man who finds his way to her studio hoping to improve his vocal technique to sing a tribute at his recently deceased mother’s memorial. The chosen song, “La Golondrina,” has a special meaning for him and, apparently, for Amelia, who, despite her initial reticence, agrees to give him a lesson. As the afternoon progresses, the two characters engage in heated discussion, unraveling the details of their past, deeply marked by a shared trauma of (spoiler) the 2016 massacre at the Orlando LGBTQ nightclub Pulse.
“La Golondrina,” despite its amiable appeal, can’t yet bear too much reality. Awkward, angsty, and yearning for approval, the show, like the closely guarded hearts it describes, is still trying on various identities. Directed by Ismanuel Rodríguez, with piercing, mournful writing by Guillem Clua for a Repertorio Español premiere, the piece is promising with growing pains, currently serving too many red herrings that swarm to the overly saccharine climax. Clua’s writing walks the tightrope of comedy and melodrama, playing with different rhythms that, while clearly drawing influence from other fast-paced, transitional media such as television and journalism, fail on stage to capture a desirable pace. Ms. Amelia and Ramon’s arguing is a cacophony of misdirected missives fueled by dramatic irony that borders on petulant. The chest tightening that should materialize at the reveal of tragedy is instead replaced by a foot-tapping impatience to just get on with it; when it reaches its full height, the play evokes a twisted sigh of relief that these slippery characters can finally speak freely and directly, offering the chance to finally reveal the play’s purpose and perspective after a tortuously dodgy sixty minutes of exposition.
Whereas the clash of these strangers’ entwined pasts comes across clunky and uncomfortably brash, the actors spend the majority of the play bustling about in their own orbits, inhabiting the same stationary set by David Chacón Perez yet seemingly guarded and in their own heads and worlds. Actors Zulema Clares and Rafa Sánchez endear us to Amelia and Ramon’s separate expositions and add passionate embodiment to Clua’s narrative. At their best, the actors exfoliate nuances in a delicate practice wherein we get to watch each character’s ego squirm, puff, and recoil in their claim to personal exoneration. As Amelia, Clares is constantly leaning against walls, skirting the perimeter of the space as if an animal caged in her own home, a torturous prison of her own mind and making. Sánchez’s Ramon is forceful and a little one note (literally, his character is also bad at singing), shedding every major plot reveal with over-the-top emphatic plops of information that could do with further refinement and diversification as understanding his character’s motives are central to any hope of empathy the audience may find. When the two finally engage in a spar of compelling worldview differences, however, Clua’s writing feels flighty, thoughts fluttering from one to the next with no time to land and make full impact. Rodríguez’s direction adds to this hand-hovering-over-the-stove caution, leaning into a kinetic energy that draws laughs and gasps but leaves little residue to take home with us.
Video design by Milton Cordero is singularly impressive, delivering both the climax and resolution in stunning visuals that transport and personify otherwise internal, monologued points of view into sweeping, bated-breath suspensions of time. Cordero elevates an otherwise unsatisfactorily saccharine ending by transforming stagnant wallpaper to fluttering butterflies; while neither character may prevail in giving the other a metamorphosis of opinion, both learn from each other in unexpected ways, opening up from their stagnant chrysalises of comfort and desperately pleading for us to do the same.
Production credits
“La Golondrina” by Guillem Clua
Directed by Ismanuel Rodríguez
Performed in Spanish with English subtitles.
Creative team features Ismanuel Rodríguez (Lighting Design), Cristian Gautier (Sound Design), Milton Cordero (Video Design), David Chacón Perez (Scenic Design), Patricia Marjorie (Props Design), Fernando Then (Costume Design and Production Manager), Tim Gutteridge (Translation), Sara Buitrago (Subtitles), Francisco Rivera (Assistant Director).
Starring Zulema Clares and Rafa Sánchez.
After an initial run that premiered January 2023, “La Golondrina” runs sporadically through May as part of Repertorio Español's rep season. Upcoming performance dates here, playing at Repertorio Español, located at 138 East 27th Street in Manhattan. The performance runs approximately 1 hour and 20 min., no intermission. For more information visit https://repertorio.nyc.