First, a gentle admonition to the transcribers at the Austin Statesman: the title is not "Petra's Pescado" (Petra's Fish). Teatro Vivo's newest presentation is Petra's Pecado or "Petra's Mortal Sin," which makes for quite a different kettle of fish.
This is Teatro Vivo's flagship play, the first of three "Petra" works written by Rupert Reyes. In the summer of 2008 when they staged the last one, Petra's Sueño(Petra's Dream), Reyes said he was putting the series to rest.
He had as much success with that declaration as Arthur Conan Doyle had with throwing his wildly popular Sherlock Holmes over the Reichenbach Falls.
Conan Doyle brought Holmes back for a long run. Similarly, giving in to the insistence of Teatro Vivo players and Austin's Spanish-speaking community, Rupert Reyes has brought back the first of the Petra stories. This time the company retrofits it with music. Judging from the excited comments around me in the audience on dress rehearsal night, Teatro Vivo scored another sentimental success.
Petra's Pecado con música -- “It’ll be a sin if you miss it!”
Written and directed by Rupert Reyes December. 3 -20, Thurs. - Sat. 8 p.m.,Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Salvage Vanguard Theatre 2803 Manor Rd Tickets $21 - $16 ($13 students, seniors, ACOT) Thursdays “pay what you wish night” Tickets on-line at www.teatrovivo.org Call 474-6379 for information Teatro Vivo presents the return of the heart-warming bilingual comedy, Petra’s Pecado written and directed by local Austin playwright Rupert Reyes. This year’s production, Petra’s Pecado con música, is an all-new updated musical version of Austin’s favorite bilingual comedy.
It will take nothing short of a miracle to help Petra and her senior citizen friends in the small town of Las Flores, TX. to present the annual play about the Virgen de Guadalupe at the local church. Why did the new priest want her to direct the play as penance for her sin? Was Petra’s sin that big? No one knows, not even her husband. What they do know is that Tina Tamayo, Petra’s tortilla business rival, is out for revenge and will do anything to stop the senior citizens in their tracks. Will Tina succeed or will Petra and her friends overcome their fears and save a lot more than the play?
This two act bilingual comedy remains the most well known play in Hispanic community. It has played to sold out houses in all previous productions. The overwhelming response to this production by a wide variety of Austin audiences and the press prompted this return engagement that has been updated to include music and dance numbers.
Leticia Rodriguez’s charming one-woman show at the Mexican American Cultural Center is really a one-woman-and-three-musicians-and-a-crowd show. She is onstage throughout, but the magic of multimedia brings us video reminiscences from her family, photos, recorded music, visual jokes and a hectoring quizmaster running a zany bilingual quiz show.
The Big Question for the quiz show is “Eres tejana o coco?”
Are you a Texan with Mexican roots, or are you a coconut – brown on the outside, but white on the inside?
Rodriguez initially plays her young self in 1975 as a beauty queen contestant, aspiring to represent her community. But will she take the oath of allegiance to the Tejano community? Not whole heartedly? In that case, in multimedia dazzle, she is bounced into the quiz.
It’s a sly, funny, heart-warming gambit that gives her the opportunity to outline her roots, from five generations back, to mock stereotypes (frijoles or brisket? Selma Hayek is: a), b) or c)?) and to sit listening with us as her mother and aunt recall growing up Tejana.
My favorite was the translation test. “Traduzca lo siguiente!” booms out the announcer, with idiot cheerfulness:
- - “I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam I am!”
- - “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where’s the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked?”
and
- - “T’was brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabes/All mimsey were the borogroves, and the mome raths outgrabe!”
Increasingly frustrated, Rodriguez looks to be losing in the contest, until the announcer plays a bolero from the 1940’s and challenges her to identify the singer, then the song, and then the composer.
She beams and gets all three. And then she lets slip that the singer, Eva Garza, the “Sweetheart of the Americas,” was her maternal aunt.
From that point, despite the indignation of the unseen announcer (“Disqualified!!”), the quiz show slips away.
Rodriguez dons a fantastical dress made for Eva Garza by a Mexico City tailor. She delivers three beautiful numbers by Garza, accompanied by guitar, bass and drums, tying them together with memories of growing up to Tejano music.
Along with a double number by Armando Manzanero (“Somos Novios” in Spanish, which became “It’s Impossible,” popularized by Perry Como), she gives us Ernest Tubb’s “Waltzing Across Texas,” played at her own wedding. Other songs complete this 90-minute presentation.
Leticia Rodriguez is lovely, funny and a heck of a cabaret singer. She is a great advertisement for the advantages of growing up in many cultures at once.
