Final Conversation with Jose Rivera

Performances remaining: 4.

Excuses for not seeing References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot if you are within a 25 square mile radius of Casa this weekend and are able to leave your house: 0.

We would love to see you Tonight or Tomorrow at 8pm. Or we could make some room for you tomorrow or Sunday at 3pm for the matinee. 2 for 1 Ticket Deal still in effect for Mother's Day Weekend, just use the ticket code "MOM" when ordering. I am done with prodding and guilting you people so I will let your mom's do it and say wouldn't it be nice to do something for your mom that didn't involve a Hallmark Card and brunch at TGI Fridays?

Been holding onto the following for about two months now. It is a transcript of a conversation that our dramaturg Jackie Lawton had with our playwright Jose Rivera. I can't tell you what a wonderful thing it was to have a living playwright working with us to answer our questions and supply so much background information regarding the genesis of the play and help discover the meaning of his work.

We had the same sort of help from Roberto with regards to Rough Magic earlier this season and we are looking forward to having some similar assistance from Jennifer Maisel with Birds. Birds by the way goes into rehearsals very soon, so get ready for another Rorschach World Premiere, this will be our 3rd for those of you keeping track.

Conversation with Jose Rivera

1. What has worked/not worked in previous production?
Playing the animals as animals, actors on all fours, or having them in costumes that resemble animals, etc, does not work.
The Coyote and the Cat are just a guy and girl. The Coyote is dangerous. The Cat is sexy. They are all in a heightened state of sexual desire.
It works best when actors aren’t afraid to go as far as the script is asking them to.
Allow the language to sound natural, flowing from you lips as though it’s the first time being spoken.
2. What is the Dream versus Reality Chronology?
Act 1 and 4 are reality. Gabby falls asleep at the end of Act 1 and dreams through Act 2 and 3. This is what Jose calls the joke of the play!!
Stylistically, Act 2 and 3 should not come off as A Midsummer Night’s Dream. None of it should be handled preciously. The language, their desires, their passions are real, gritty, psychologically disturbing, etc.
3. What or who inspired the script?
Benito is Jose’s brother Tony who was soldier in Gulf War 1. The machismo and the language are right from his brother’s mouth.
What Gabby does, in studying Islam, Muhammad, Karma, is what Jose did.
“If my brother’s going to be harmed, I wanted to understand what we were supposed to be afraid of/what we are fighting.”
He wanted to do some good.
He was also going through a divorce at the time he was writing this play. What it is when a marriage is in danger? What is it when two people can no longer communicate with one another?
He wanted to examine how two people who could have loved one another could suddenly, or over time, grow/develop into people who no longer love one another.

Review II: Electric Boogaloo

Scott McCormick as the Moon is a gem. When he croons his version of ‘Moon River’, ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ and ‘Blue Moon ‘in his snazzy white suit, you only wish he was smoking a Cuban cigar as well. Gabby (Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey) and Benito (Andrew Price) handle the hard drama skillfully - both completely engulfed in their characters and their depression. The cat and coyote portrayed by Yasmin Tuazon and Danny Gavigan respectively, are the "hot" part of References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, their back and forth sexual game play is some of the best comedic acting I have seen in a while. The Coyote, while trying to swoon the young feline, promises "all of her nine lives will have orgasms". Last but certainly not least is our amorous young friend Martin, (Cesar A. Guadamuz) who is just a prize. With work at Rorschach and last year’s Lunch and Spinning Into Butter, he has become an engaging young actor.

That is what Ronnie Ruff over at DC Theatre Review had to say about the cast if you want to read about the love he showed to the rest of the show, click here for the entire review.

And this was the note passed to us through our very much appreciated dramaturg from the playwright regarding our outstanding review in The Washington Post yesterday:

Dear Jacqueline,

Thank you so much for the wonderful review.
And I was already bummed that I couldn't see the production --now I'm twice as bummed! Please give the cast my sincerest congratulations. Also -- I saw the piece on youtube. That was great. Thanks for being my window into your production ...

hope our paths cross again.
jose

Here is the link to the trailer if you missed it last week.

We have three shows this weekend, Tonight, Friday and Saturday at 8pm. We expect big crowds, whether we get them or not is really up to all of you. Come feel the heat at Casa this weekend! Call 1-800-494-TIXS or visit BoxOfficeTickets.com to get your tickets for any show we do now through May 13th.

Get to Know Jose Rivera

Never had a playwright answer one of these. Never had anyone who was nominated for an Oscar answer one of these either. Never had anyone who was friends with one of the Bosom Buddies.

But since Jackie is the one who scored this one I will let her word do the talking as it were. As we pose our 10 Questions to playwright Jose Rivera, author of References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot.

Dear Jose,

How are you? How is your play going? I hope well! I just had the best idea! Read on ...

For each production, the folks at Rorschach put together a list of questions that allows the public to get to know the cast, designers and production folks. Once we fill it out, they put it up on their theatre blog. If you have time to fill this out, it would be quite a treat for the Rorschach folks!

Let me know what you think and take care!!!

Always,
Jacqueline

1. What is your job in References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot?

... writer?

2. Have you ever worked for Rorschach before and how?

... not that I can remember unless it was a former life.

3. Do you have any recurring dreams and if so what are they about?

... for years I was haunted by a dream in which I was in an old haunted house and couldn't find my way out of it

4. Other than Dali which painters turn you on?

... mostly primitive, outsider artists, the art of the mentally insane I love

5. Have you been doing any special research for the show?

... I stole heavily from my brother Tony's life. He was a vet of the first Gulf War. I also explore the disintegration of my first marriage.

6. Who is the biggest celebrity you have ever met and how?

... when I was 22 I was an apprentice actor at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland and one of the other apprentices was Tom Hanks and we've been friends ever since.

7. In a steel-cage-no-holds-barred-death match which character in Dali would win?

... Gabby hands down

8. What is the most impossible thing that happens in the play?

... that it gets produced!

9. If you could live inside of any painting what would it be?

... shit, this is too hard ... I love Munch's "Scream"but wouldn't want to live in it ... maybe in one of the sensual paintings by Klimt with all those sensual women.

10. If you had a theme song what would it be?

... oh Christ, I have no idea. Early Rolling Stones ballads?

... good luck!

jose

Butterfly:Man

There are certain shows that Rorschach does that have people leaving the theater asking questions. We have never been a theater that has wrapped a bow around a play. Where would be the fun if you knew there was a happily ever after? How challenging is it to have people leave your show going, well that was very nice how everything came to such a happy ending and the wicked were punished? We are not the neat and tidy kind of theater company and I don't expect we ever will be.

That being said there are some shows that can eventually lead you to some sort of understanding and others that simply defy explination.

As we have begun to dig into References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, we just have more questions. And I for one couldn't be happier. My most recent show had a happy ending, but that was a Christmas show and I don't think many people want to leave the theater around the Holidays asking themselves the deeper questions surrounding the moral truths and humanity associated with Scrooge and Sugar Plum Fairies. Even most classical plays end with the hero winning and the villian punished.

What we have here in Dali is a beautiful play which plays with the linear nature of time, explores the reality of dreams and has no easy answers.

Jose Rivera, has constructed a play where even the straight forward seeming normal world of the reality we exist within is called into question.

I wish I could be more specific without giving away the play but I don't want to ruin it. And I don't want you asking the question this play begs before you have even bought your ticket.

I do leave you with this thought:

The great Taoist master Chuang Tzu once dreamt that he was a butterfly fluttering here and there. In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person. He was only a butterfly. Suddenly, he awoke and found himself laying there, a person once again. But then he thought to himself, "Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?"