GALA’s ‘Lucido’ weaves dreams, memories into vivid show

“Lucido,” at GALA Theatre, is a dream play encased within a memory play. The majority of Rafael Spregulburd’s script hovers between what seems to be the present and a recurring dream. Using repetition and conflation of personalities, Spregulburd slips his characters into a bizarre, veiled territory where he can spoof human foibles and techniques of psychoanalysis. The play begins with what appears to be a conventional enough setting: a mother, Tete (Cynthia Benjamin), her grown son, Lucas (Peter Pereyra), and daughter, Lucrecia (Anabel Marcano), are sitting down at a new restaurant to celebrate Lucas’ 25th birthday.

A waiter, Mozo (Carlos Castillo), appears to take their order, and confusion creeps in: The waiter repeats the restaurant’s inventive mode of cooking several times, and Tete and Lucrecia argue over whether they should order flat or sparkling water. It appears a new dysfunctional family has arrived.

Things get even stranger when the family leaves the restaurant and returns to “reality,” where Lucrecia comes home after a long absence to visit her mother. In fact, the photos she has sent her mother of children (whom Tete assumes are her grandchildren) are just photos from “Harry Potter” books. It is clear that this is not reality at all.

The plot would be hard to follow if director Jose Carrasquillo weren’t working with two extremely gifted actors in the roles of the children. As Marcano and Pereyra argue with each other and their mother, they make the absurdity of Spregulburd’s script intriguing — not credible, but interesting.

Benjamin does well with the difficult role of Tete, who ultimately has to overturn the already topsy-turvy universe of “Lucido.” Castillo is fine as Mozo and Dario.

One of the best features of this production is the set, designed by Giorgos Tsappas. What seems to be real happens closest to the audience. Toward the back of the stage is the restaurant. In the center of the set, two red horizontal dividers slide back and forth, separating character from character and dream from actuality, physically dividing the indistinct lines between reality and imagination.