Mixed Blood Theatre’s “Corazón Eterno” is a pleasing and heart-touching blend of the conventional and the unorthodox.
The basic story offers a few minor twists on the standard boy-meets-girl tale: Julio and Julia, an old couple, start the show by offering to tell us the story of their love. Shedding hats and shawls and glasses, the staid seniors become idealistic teenagers, swapping love letters, quoting D.H. Lawrence, convinced each is the only one who can complete the other.
But, as Shakespeare and other authorities on the subject tell us, the course of true love never does run smooth. Without divulging too much of the story, the relationship between this pair has more than its share of detours, courtesy of pride and over-protective fathers; distance and attractive others. So when Julio and Julia kiss near the end of the play’s 90-minute length, the simple gesture conveys a lifetime of longing and unconventional commitment.
But what gives “Corazón Eterno” a sense of sweep and romance and other-worldliness is the way in which it’s conveyed: Playwright Caridad Svich places the action in a nameless Latin country, with her characters speaking in high-blown, ornamented language reminiscent of Columbian writer Gabriel García Márquez, whom the playwright cites as inspiration for the script.
The dialogue is spoken in both English (generally, when the youngsters are speaking to each other) and Spanish (most commonly when Julio and Julia are talking with their parents). Projected super-titles provide real-time translations, so if you’re fluent in only one of those languages, you still get the entirety of the play.
Israel López Reyes and Mariana Fernández are closer in age to the teenage Julio and Julia than to their elder versions, so it’s perhaps not surprising that their portrayals of young hot-blooded lovers have more resonance than their older counterparts (who tend toward doddering caricature). Reyes broods and fumes, wearing his character’s heart on his sleeve; Fernández endures, her still waters running deep, only occasionally boiling over.
Sasha Andreev has a thankless task as a psychiatrist who vies for Julia’s affections. It’s the sort of character often inserted into a narrative to create conflict but one that writers seldom bother to endow with much else in terms of depth or motivation. This is a misdemeanor on the part of the playwright, but Andreev mitigates the offense by finding and exploiting an interesting edge or two beneath Dr. Miguel Reyes’ self-assured smugness.
Raúl Ramos, too, might have succumbed to the familiar stereotype of the hovering father common to these sorts of love stories. But his Agustin is, instead, full of complexity and contradiction. When he’s lecturing his daughter, he is the unquestioned and unquestioning patriarch, up to his eyebrows in scheming and certitude. Put the character on less-familiar turf — engaging with Dr. Reyes or someone else above his social station — and the machismo cracks quickly.
But it’s Lisa Suarez, as Julio’s take-no-nonsense mother, Clemencia, who comes close to stealing the show. Offering homespun wisdom one moment, spitting venom at those who’ve wronged her son the next and always — always — hectoring Julio to be the best and most whole person he can be, Suarez is a fireball; able to draw sighs or laughter from the audience seemingly at will.
“Corazón Eterno” is familiar and foreign, traditional and transgressive, intimate and expansive. Beneath these paradoxes, it is, quite simply, a warm story, well told.
If you go
What: “Corazón Eterno (Always in My Heart)”
When: Through February 25
Where: Mixed Blood Theatre, 1501 S. 4th St., Minneapolis
Tickets: free under Mixed Blood’s “Radical Hospitality” program; seats may be guaranteed in advance for $25 per ticket
Information: 612-338-6131 or mixedblood.com
Capsule: An evergreen tale gets spruced up in this bi-lingual love story.
