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Ashland, Oregon HOME Valley & State Sports Nation & World Opinion/Editorial Classifieds Business Columnists Local Issues Obituaries Weather Archive Revels Etcetera Backpage Hot Topics Most Viewed Forum Photo Galleries Video Readers Polls O-Zone Online Games Movie Preview Special Sections Real Estate Guide Menu Guide Shakespeare Subscribe Contact Us Rate Card Place an Ad July 16, 2005 In Review | Gibraltar by Tidings reviewer Roberta Kent Series of vignettes fits well together As the last of its openings in this 2005 season, OSF offers the world premiere of “Gibraltar” by award-winning playwright Octavio Solis, directed by Liz Diamond. Amy (Vilma Silva) tries to come to terms with the death of her husband with the help of the stranger Palo (René Millán). Jenny Graham | Courtesy of OSF “Gibraltar” is a haunting and powerful play — a seemingly random odyssey through memory and storytelling that seeks to examine the nature of love, passion and loss. If in his earlier OSF production, “El Paso Blue,” playwright Octavio Solis gave us an epic tragedy set against the bi-cultural limbo space of El Paso, Texas. In “Gibraltar,” his canvas is much more intimate. The play unfolds in a claustrophobic apartment overlooking the bay in San Francisco. It is an apartment that becomes as large as the landscape of the emotions of the human heart. Amy (Vila Silva), an artist, is paralyzed by grief after the mysterious death of her husband in a sailing accident. She’s stopped painting, virtually stopped eating and living. On a furtive trip to the neighborhood Safeway, she sees Palo (René Millán), a ragged, emaciated Mexican vagrant. Later that night, once more locked away in the one room she uses in the apartment, Palo appears. Is he real? Invited guest or a break-in? Or, is he simply imagined? Palo seems to know all about Amy and her guilty grief. He, too, is mourning a lost love and he has spent years walking north along the beaches of the West Coast searching for his Lila. Palo points out that his name means “stick” in Spanish. But “palo” also can mean club or cudgel and Palo does not rest until he prods Amy into an examination of her mourning and why she is in such despair. As Palo and Amy discuss the nature of their own loss, grief and anger, they begin to tell stories — embellishing the tales with their own hopes and desires. Palo’s versions of the stories end in rage, violence and death. Amy counters with endings that are bittersweet — still filled with grief and loss but redeemed by love. And, as Amy and Palo work through these “cuentos,” these stories, each is redeemed from their own isolation. The tales seem random: A black dock worker (Kevin Kenerly) meets an artist (Dee Maaske) and encounters the woman who pushed his father to suicide. A play-by-the rules policeman (U. Jonathan Toppo) is bewildered and infuriated when his storybook marriage ends with his wife (Julie Oda) leaving him for a woman. An older man (Bill Geisslinger) is attracted to a younger woman as he tries to hold onto the memory of his deeply loved wife (Judith-Marie Bergan), who is drifting away into Alzheimer’s. Director Liz Diamond is resident director of the Yale Repertory Theatre and directed the Festival’s production of “The Trojan Women” in 2000. She’s given “Gibraltar” a spare, intense staging, using Richard L. Hay’s minimalist set and Chris Parry’s lighting to good effect in the already intimate space of the New Theatre. It is to Diamond’s credit that the actors seem to take over from there, weaving and creating their own dynamic. The creation of “Gibraltar” began after OSF presented Solis’ “El Paso Blue” in 1999. In 2000, the National Theatre Artist Residency Program (through the Pew Charitable Trusts) awarded Solis and OSF a grant for Solis to use an actor-centered model in a series of workshops to develop a play. Throughout 2001, Solis and seven festival actors met informally in OSF rehearsal halls. As the actors improvised upon Solis’ ideas, creating characters and scenes, “Gibraltar” took shape. The group-dynamic process in the writing is apparent. Often, the stories and characters seem to take on a life of their own, having very little to do with the original premise of the play. But, through Solis’ poetic dialogue, Diamond’s skilled direction and the talent of OSF’s ensemble, remarkably the themes do weave together to form a coherent whole. We do become enmeshed in these vignettes. If there is one glaring weakness in “Gibraltar,” it lies in the character of Palo. Palo, unfortunately, is the least interesting element of the play. First, there is the irritating mystery of who he is and why he’s even there. And, if you accept him, there is the problem that his story is simply not very compelling and he is less than sympathetic. He wooed Lila, won her and beat her up in a drunken rage for some real or imagined infidelity. Does he want her back? Or does he simply want to finish her off? His story is the only one left unresolved. It’s a minor flaw in an otherwise mesmerizing experience. “Gibraltar” is going to be performed in repertory for a long time. As you hear about productions in Seattle, Los Angeles or New York, remember: It all started in Ashland. --> Copyright © 2006 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers. All Rights Reserved.