September Shoes

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Playwright Jose Cruz Gonzalez, knows what it means to be a Mexican migrant farm worker. He grew up in the culture; he wanted the voice heard so he wrote September Shoes currently on stage at the DCPA’s Ricketson Theatre. Produced by the Denver Center Theatre Company, and directed by Amy Gonzales, September Shoes dips into a poetic atmosphere set in Dolores, Colorado.

Wilma Bonet as Cuki in the Denver Center Theatre Company’s season opening production of September Shoes. Photo by Terry Shapiro

Touted on the one hand of defying description, and on the other as being a suspense thriller of Magical Realism, September Shoes points in the direction it wants to go, but it doesn’t arrive on schedule.

More than anything, September Shoes is a “Could Be.”

The most magical part of the production is the set designed by Christopher Acebo with its surrealistic desert flavor sharing the stage with a cemetery, the inside of a motel room, and the hint of a Chinese-Mexican restaurant, the El Dragon Azul. In the middle of the cemetery stands a large red pole, that isn’t just any pole. It is one leg of a very large red chair so large only one leg can be seen from the perspective of the audience.

Luis Saguar plays Huilo, whose job it is to maintain the cemetery. He does so with detailed accuracy. The rest of his life remains fuzzy around the edges, aided and abetted by frequent nips from his bottle. A simple man who takes pride in his cemetery work, Huilo hangs tough to his simplistic Faith with frequent conversations with the Lord, making sure the graves remain weed free, and carving the names of the souls buried in the cemetery onto the leg of the chair. When the Lord comes he wants to be certain, no one is forgotten. Why the chair? He built a very big chair because he knows the Lord is a very big man, and he wants to be sure the Lord has a place to sit and rest in the unforgiving hot sun beating down on the desert.

Unforgiving runs through the play as fervently as a flash flood in a dry creek bed.

Gail and Alberto occupy the motel room, having returned to Dolores to attend Lily’s funeral. Lily owned the restaurant being held in high esteem by the town’s people. Gail knows this well. Lily was her aunt who raised her. Neither Gail nor Alberto is happy about returning to Dolores, and it is clear from the outset he wants to leave as soon as possible. That fact alone reveals there is good reason he wants to leave. Played by John Herrera, Alberto has a choppy gait, an air of hesitancy, and a stirring of uncertainty that appears to come more from Herrera than it does from Alberto.

Karmin Murcelo wears the skirts of Gail that appear to be too big for her, creating irregular vacillations in speech and movement. Murcelo creates the impression she hasn’t fully embraced Gail. Carrying more than their suitcases, the baggage between Gail and Alberto encompasses an emotional gap in communication almost as wide as the desert itself.

The magical reality label attempts to describe the unfolding of events moving far beyond chronological time and space. Ghosts of past memories invade Alberto’s thoughts. September Shoes wants to be a visual stream of consciousness with one thought leading to another popping up before his eyes. Albert’s 14-year-old sister materializes while he sleeps. Urgency in her voice, Ana begs Albert to take her to the dance. He promised. He knows he promised but staunchly resists.

Adriana Gaviria not only endows Ana with an ethereal quality with grace and dignity, but also provides the voices of Juan for the maid, Cuki and Lily for Gail. An accomplished actor, Gaviria moves with the spirit of a dancer, capturing even the most finite detail. Running the gambit of emotion there is never any question of who she is, what she is doing, or where she is going. With her ghostly appearances, there is no question Ana is headed for a disastrous collision of some kind, and Albert had a great deal to do with it.

Wilma Bonet embraces the motel maid, Cuki, with overflowing enthusiasm. Cuki knows shoes. She can tell anything about a person by their shoes. There is a relationship between the sole of a shoe and the soul of a person. She knows instantly Gail has a hole in the sole of her shoe. That hole revealed itself the minute Gail opened her mouth. Cuki not only reads shoes, she steals them from the motel, nailing them to a wall. Shoes have far more significance to Cuki then what meets the eye.

Lighting, or lack of creative lighting has a great deal to do with magic not playing a part in the reality of September Shoes. Too many bright lights detract from the mysterious suspenseful quality. Creative, colorful lighting along with a foggy mist would provide a strong ethereal quality missing from most of the play.

Although the script wants to come face to face with border culture, the play, as written, doesn’t directly speak to that culture. The bulk of the play could be anywhere anytime with anyone. The script reflects the Mexican American experience only because of the characters, but does not supply any direct insight into defining that particular culture.

There are two major problems with the script. If this story took place in a large metropolitan area, it could be believable. In a small town like Dolores where everyone knows everyone and everyone’s business, it is highly unlikely a major automobile accident involving so many people wouldn’t be known by everyone in the town. For Cuki not to know whom Huilo is and the dramatic impact he had is completely unbelievable. With her gregarious outspoken personality, of course she pays attention to people, of course she listens to the gossip, how could she not know Huilo’s background? It had to be the talk of the town for years.

When Gail reveals to Cuki she knows Lily felt guilty over the accident because she was the one who sold the liquor to Huilo, a red flag waves high above the stage. Gail spends a great deal of time, reflecting on the rumbled relationship between her and Lily. She only wanted Lily to love her, never getting what she ached for. When she left Dolores to marry Alberto, she wrote many letters to Lily, never getting a response. If this breech in communication dug that deeply, Gail would be the last person to know what Lily felt guilty about.

The all too bright lighting, and the holes in the script sticking out more profusely than the leg of the red chair, may speak to the broken rhythm of direction given to the actors, which may have something to do with the stifled stiffness most obvious with Herrera and Murcelo.

The basic idea of September Shoes remains charming. The conflicts tearing at and connecting the actors definitely stands as tall as the red chair. Forgiveness comes too quickly at the end; solutions slip into their lives to easily. That definitely strikes out any sense of reality for the play. Magical qualities never make it onto the stage. It could be. For that to happen, magical realism needs to engulf the entire production from the set, lighting, characterizations, and direction.