“La sangre nos trata destrozar…El gobierno nos trata destrozar…Las tormentas nos tratan destrozar…Pero aquí estamos.” | “Our blood tries to destroy us…The government tries to destroy us…The storms try to destroy us…But here we are.”
A storm is brewing in Miami, Florida in 1992. As a small Cuban family prepares to brace the storm, loyalty and bonds are tested in El Huracán by Charise Castro Smith. The play premiered at the University Theatre last month and just finished a successful production run.
In El Huracán, a college-age daughter, Miranda, tries to ignore her mother’s disapproving glances while coping with the reality of what she has lost in the distance. Ximena is fighting to remain strong as she watches her own mother slip away, yet another loved one abandoning her, while the disease she inherited tears at her soul. When tragedy strikes, the two women are left on their own, grasping at the frayed strings of what once was. When trust, identity, and memory are threatened and destroyed, what remains, and what can be restored?
By far, the most powerful image showcased in El Huracán is the generational gradient that is illustrated onstage among the women. Language and culture are deeply effectual in the dynamics between each character. Valeria (Adriana Sevahn Nichols), the strong yet weary foundation, is a former magicienne with advanced Alzheimer’s disease. Her relationship with her daughter, Ximena (Maria-Christina Oliveras ’01), is wracked with tension as Ximena is forced to care for a mother whose disease has erased her from memory. Language seems to enforce this divide between mother and daughter; whenever Ximena speaks Spanish to her mother, it is to diffuse her. Despite Valeria’s inability to speak English, there is never a point in which Spanish is used to remind her of their bond; Ximena instead perpetuates the distance between them by coddling her and creating a pretend reality.
Miranda (Irene Sofia Lucio DRA ’11) is frustrated by the misleadings of her grandmother. The divine between her and mother grows with the mistrust. In Part One, Ximena resents Miranda for leaving just like Alonso (Jonathan Nichols), her father, did to her years prior. To compound the issue, Valeria appears to remember those who have left her over the daughter who stands by her side for years. After the incident, Ximena blames Miranda, and ultimately herself for trusting her daughter to watch over Valeria. She also appears to blame Valeria, the truth behind her resentment toward Miranda becoming clear as she addresses the mental image of her mother: “How can you take her side?” she berates Valeria, continuing, “She abandoned you!” After Valeria, and the magic, disappear in Part One, Val (Jennifer Paredes) becomes the connector that finally allows Ximena and Miranda to reconcile after twenty-seven years apart. Now the same age as Miranda was at the beginning of the play, the events have come full circle.
The generational differences between the women become most obvious in their Spanish speaking abilities. Valeria and her daughter Ximena were both born in el Vedado, Havana, Cuba. Valeria mentions that she, Alonso, and their young daughter “boarded a boat, with nothing but a trunk full of tricks,” immigrating to America to pursue Valeria’s future career as a successful magicienne. A small family of Cuban-born immigrants, the three speak perfect Spanish. Miranda, Ximena’s daughter, seems to have trouble with Spanish, a struggle exacerbated after she leaves her family. For Miranda, her culture is a reminder of her problematic relationship with her mother, who she at times believes may truly hate her. Miranda is a relatable identifier, especially for first-, second-, and third- generation Latinx audience members.
Without a clear line to one’s culture, complications created by faulty familial relationships and physical distance from the community lead to an intense conflict in identity that Lucio displays with a candid vulnerability. Her confusion and detachment from her culture are implied in her move to Cambridge to receive a college education. In Part One, Ximena throws Miranda’s privilege and hard work back in her face, snarling “You know what’s best—because of your stuck up expensive school?” Even Fernando (played by Arturo Soria DRA ’19), a childhood friend, notes, “I guess I just don’t really understand how someone could leave their family and their home, and where they’re from and just bounce” to which Miranda replies, “No. I’m sure you don’t.”
El Huracán premiered at the University Theater on September 28, running through October 20, 2018, in collaboration with The Sol Project and the Yale Repertory Theatre. The viewing experience varied each night depending on the audience and its responses to the production. Furthermore, El Huracán is unique in its use of Spanish as interchangeable with English. The Yale Repertory Theatre even enforced a strict policy that rejected the use of English translation throughout the run of the production, despite the notes made by the playwright within the actual script. Nevertheless, these notes are not consistent and are at times sparse, creating the implication that the reader should understand a sufficient amount of the text without them. The provided notes in the script are thus accessible to the actors who plan to play these roles and not actual audience members following the progression of the plot, which becomes an intentional decision that supports Spanish-speaking audiences.
The Yale Repertory Theatre is a historical institution founded in 1966, and productions that exhibit such dynamic and diverse casts provide opportunities for communities of color to see themselves in the characters and situations they are watching. The representation of Latina women as three-dimensional human beings is groundbreaking. These women, who are mothers, sisters, lovers, academics, and magicians, are also experiencing disease, trauma, and immense pain.
Family, disaster, mortality, and what it means to be remembered are concerns brought to the forefront in El Huracán by a cast of Latinx actors; what results is a whirlwind of emotions and nostalgia. The play builds a gripping feeling within the heart that swells at the play’s emotional heights. Each layer, from generational differences to environmental tragedies, fractures the fragile image of a Cuban family that never appeared to be whole in the first place. For Latinx spectators, the emotional labor is worth it, because it means hurting and smiling and laughing for (and with) people who look so much like one’s own.
-Alexus Coney (BF ‘20)
She can be reached at alexus.coney@yale.edu
