crazy love It is considered one of the most intense and representative pieces of contemporary theater.
Mexico City, November 30 (However).- A story of love, chaos, passion and pain is presented on the stage of the Lucerna Forum, it is about the play crazy love by the American playwright Sam Shepard, which features the performances of Rafaela Covas, Rodrigo Virago, Alejandro Morales and Alberto Lomnitz under the direction of Gabriela Negrete.
What is it about?
Crazy Love (original title is Fool for Love) introduces us to Eddie and May in a motel in the middle of the desert, a relationship marked by obsession, memory and the impossibility of escaping the past. A couple in which the passion is strong and in which both know that if they remain together it will lead them to destruction and as the story progresses, secrets will be revealed and showing the emotional violence and vulnerability that inhabits every love story.
Shepard’s text is considered one of the most intense and representative pieces of contemporary theater.
A relationship to reflect on
The actor Rodrigo Virago plays Eddie in this staging, an intense character who is involved in a toxic relationship. For the actor, Yanto Eddie and May are on the path to destruction if they stay together, but at the same time, they are the only two people who understand each other, however there are more elements, traumas and circumstances that do not allow them to be together.
“I believe that at some point in life everyone has been Eddie or May, that is, having these types of passionate and toxic relationships.” […]”I think everyone has gone through that moment of loving someone with a lot of desire, with a lot of passion and with a lot of love and knowing that you can’t be there and how that triggers violence, both physical and verbal, and in actions,” Rodrigo Virago said in an interview with However.
Rodrigo has reflected on human relationships and attachment, until what point is it good to say enough is enough.
“crazy love “It is a classic text, in my opinion, because it talks about these human conditions that everyone has experienced at some point or another and that is what makes this work very special, I think,” he explained.
The father figure
In director Gabriela Negrete’s production, there is an important character who is Eddie’s father, whom only Eddie can see and hear. This character is played by Alberto Lomnitz, and shows the burden of the past and how it influences the couple’s present.
“On the outside, this character that only Eddie sees is orbiting, which in some way also speaks of the trauma that Eddie has and the resentments he has towards his father figure, which is why it bothers Eddie a lot when the other man is going to come,” explained Rodrigo Virago.
And he adds: “The man has screwed up a lot in his life, in Eddie’s life, and he is also condemned to repeat the same mistakes of his father, of abandoning, of going with someone else, of returning; everything is very linked and it is a text that in that sense is very precise, very exact, there are no loose ends anywhere.”
New masculinities
In the staging, Eddie is a rude and even sexist character. “It makes me think a lot, I like intense characters with this very macho energy to try to create this awareness that this man no longer has a place today and how we have to look for a new masculinity in these times, that’s why I like to play these characters, not because that’s how I am in life, but to remind me that those attitudes no longer have a place,” Rodrigo reflected.
Rodrigo recalled that the character of Martín, played by Alejandro Morales, is an example of what should be followed, since he listens to the question, he is not violent, in the face of outbreaks of anger he better decides to separate, “it is very interesting in terms of the male characters that are there.”
Set design and costumes
One of the aspects that stands out in Loco Amor is the scenery, the story takes place in a Motel room and is very much taken to the stage, there is a typical room, with the worn tapestry on the walls, the carpet, the bathroom, even the neon sign at the top. Really great work created by Félix Arroyo.
“Félix Arroyo is a genius of scenography, he always makes things that are very colorful and very beautiful,” said Virago. “You feel like it’s a cage where there are two, a lion and a lioness fighting and how it goes, living outside of that, all the trauma of these two beings.”
Regarding the clothing, it is also key to identify that it is from the south of the United States and the north of Mexico. The costumes were in charge of Giselle Sandiel. “The costumes, I think, are also very ad hoc, you feel southern and that’s cool. And me being a northerner, I mean, I love dressing like that, because it fascinates me,” Rodrigo said.
When and where?
Crazy Love It will be presented until January 21 at the Foro Lucerna (C. Lucerna 64, Juárez, Cuauhtémoc, 06600 Mexico City) with performances on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. The price of ticket It is 350 pesos.