María Cristina Fusté

How to Eat an Orange

June 4, 2024

This is the story of Claudia Bernardi, a visual artist and activist, as told in a one-woman show, "How to Eat an Orange." It tells of Bernardi’s time growing up in Argentina in the profound gloom of the military junta and the stories of the “desaparecidos,” the missing ones. It was written by Catherine Filloux, a French Algerian American playwright who traveled to and wrote plays about human rights conflicts in countries worldwide. She brings a first-hand narrative understanding of what Bernardi experienced during and after the time of the junta and her work in other countries with this collection of desaparecidos' stories. [more]

Songs About Trains

April 16, 2022

As a piece of theater, "Songs About Trains" is earnest and unique. Lead author (and performer) Beto O’Byrne, along with contributing authors Eugenie Chan, Reginald Edmund, Jay B Muskett and Rebecca Martínez (who also co-directs) have constructed a work that’s not definitely a musical and not quite a play, but more of a performance piece which sews stories together with music, dance and songs. [more]

Fur

November 13, 2019

Migdalia Cruz’s "Fur" (presented by Boundless Theatre Company at Next Door @NYTW) has the sensibility of a folk tale, the coherency of a fever dream, and the trappings of a horror movie. It’s an unsettling piece of theater. After you’ve seen it, don’t be surprised if it noses its way into your psyche and burrows into your personal dreamscape. This production, directed by Elena Araoz, is the play’s New York City premiere. (It debuted in Chicago in 1995.) According to Cruz’s stage directions, it takes place in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles suburb, but the playwright isn’t necessarily concerned about specifics of time or place. In fact, the play seems to transpire in some shadowy corner of the collective unconscious. [more]

The Conduct of Life

September 16, 2018

Farce meets tragedy in a fictional unnamed Latin American country in "The Conduct of Life." It’s a raucous yet insightful fantasia about military oppression taking its toll on the populace by the celebrated playwright María Irene Fornés. First performed in 1985 it is being given an inspired revival by the Boundless Theatre Company that is “spearheaded by women and theatre-makers of color.” The play is structured as 19 short, often absurdly funny and sometimes unsettling scenes, some lasting just a few seconds, that total 75 fascinating minutes. [more]

Mud

October 18, 2017

While the acting is compelling, the threesome does not reveal many layers to their characters; they establish a persona and stick to it, without divulging any further information. As Mae, Nicole Villamil is both stoical and passive, a rather flat reading of this ambitious though down-trodden young woman. Julian Elijah Martinez’s Lloyd definitely comes from the lower depths with his vulgar language, his self-pity and his inability to help himself. However, there is little variety in his performance and we have no idea what his relationship with Mae has been up to this time. He does get noticeable stronger after he begins taking the pills the clinic has prescribed. Unaccountably dressed in a sport jacket and a tie in Sarita Fellows’ costume design, Nelson Avidon’s Henry is the biggest enigma of the three. At first reticent and later lascivious, he tells us little about his attraction to Mae - or where he comes from. [more]