“Rifar El Corazon” (“Heartstrings”) by Uruguayan playwright Dino Armas is a bracing blend of the familiar and the strange, a poetic vision of a common event — the parting of two sisters — set within a frame of unfamiliar, uncommon details.
If you go
“Rifar el Corazon”
Where: Teatro de la Luna, Theatre II, Gunston Arts Center, 2700 S. Lang St., Arlington
When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 3 p.m. Saturday; through May 29
Info: $20 to $30; 703-548-3092; teatrodelaluna.org
The sensitive production of “Heartstrings” at Teatro de La Luna brings out both the comedy and the pathos in Armas’ work. Masterfully directed by Mario Marcel, who also designed the effective set, the play develops in three separate places. The first area is created by Alex Alburqueque, who sings as he plays an upright piano to one side of the stage, creating a gentle, romantic mood with each song. All are sung in Spanish; Agustin Lara’s “Only Once” is the most famous. The music comes and goes, continually re-establishing the mood of reverie that underlies the play.
The second area of attention is the relationship between the sisters. Silvana (Marycarmen Wila) has come to visit her sister Marta (Nucky Walder) before leaving to visit her son in New York. This is where all the comedy of the play exists — and there is plenty of it — and also a great deal of tenderness. Silvana brings old photographs, letters and memories of the life she and Marta shared growing up. Much of the play involves these two women sharing old secrets at the dining room table of Marta’s home.
Wila is excellent as the spoiled woman whose life has been empty and who is so controlling of her existence, she brings her own tea and sweetener when she travels. Wila neatly establishes Silvana’s fears: fear of New York and of leaving the world she knows.
But it is Walder who makes the duet so compelling, stressing in every tiny detail how different the sisters are — and were all along. The role calls for high comedy that takes a swift plunge into darker emotions and Walder handles both easily. She has the ability to take a line of dialogue and give all the words intense depth and breadth. If she were a singer, Walder would be a coloratura soprano.
The third area of attention in this play belongs to Marta’s wheelchair-bound daughter, Alicia (Yovinca Arredondo Justiniano). Although Alicia cannot be heard by Marta and Silvana, the audience hears her lyrical monologues, usually delivered behind a transparent curtain. Since a considerable trauma has put Alicia into the wheelchair, listening to her memories of the boy she once loved and of the person she used to be is intensely moving.
Armas has a prodigious ability to hear the silly, the profound, the bizarre. In this play he has skillfully married that ability to symbolism, music, poetry and theatrical craft. He is fortunate to be produced by a theater company intelligent enough to handle the subtle intricacies of his “Heartstrings.”
