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About the play --
For Artistic Director Mark Booher (who also serves as this production's director) the beauty of Invierno is found in Shakespeare’s beautiful and mysterious play The Winter’s Tale melded by a terrific creative alchemy to this work of José Cruz González. This newly commissioned work offers a play about the fracture of relationships brought about by misplaced jealousy and the destruction that ensues when we betray our fidelity to truth in our relationships with family, with friends, with Nature, and with the Divine. The beauty of this play lies in its conviction that our faults are redeemable, though they will exact a price. That redemption is not cheaply purchased and we are often left with scars that remind us of the cost of our choices and the resulting hurts that have been healed. That knowledge helps us navigate the stormy times. And in the end, when we have weathered the winter, there comes a time of miraculous regeneration. Such telling and retelling of these great stories can help us, as people and as a community, to live and love in hope.
Set on the Central Coast of Rancho California in the years between 1831 and 1846, Invierno blends the cultural layers that composed the state of that era in an exploration of jealousy, betrayal and redemption. The work has its origins in William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, but benefits from the multilingual and multicultural explorations of history and humanity that typify the works of José Cruz González. For Booher, it’s an honor and genuine pleasure to be working with González again following the success of PCPA’s premiere of The Heart’s Desire. His gift for "listening" - to his artistic collaborators, to the audiences to whom he speaks, and to his own passion for great story - makes him both a delightful colleague and terrific artist. Booher speaks admiringly of González as an exemplary artist who is especially attuned to the necessity of watchfulness when being visionary, and to the vitality of listening in giving voice to a story.
About the production --
Through the development process on this new work, Rancho California has emerged as an ideal setting for the retelling of this classic story. The Dons of the Rancheros were the kings of nineteenth century California in many practical senses, but their “reign” was not always purchased with absolute benevolence. And its perpetuation was predicated on their ability to change with the vicissitudes of time, traditions and nations. It was an era of extraordinary tension and we are, all of us, the inheritors of the conflicts and connections forged and continued during this violent and powerful period of our shared history.
Utilizing the intimacy of the Severson Theater in an entirely new seating configuration, the setting for the show is predominantly an adobe structure, or the remnants thereof, and a large oak tree. This environment serves as both the literal location and the theatrical playing space. It possesses a certain kind of historical anachronism in the way that all places do for so many generations of action, and periods of human interaction, have taken place around ‘ancient’ structures. While being our link to the past, they are also anchors that draw us into today. Since the play blends the contemporary world and the nineteenth century one, the costumes reflect this melding of worlds and times. Part of the dress is of another era – and both “authentic” and representative of that era. And part of the dress offers us the familiarity of the present day.
The play has so much mystery/miracle to it that Booher believes lighting will be an important aspect in creating that experience. The light may be bright at times, but not quite ‘realistic.’ It’s both winter and spring in the play and it’s a play with dreams, prophecies, oracles, storms, time passage, memory and magic. Because the play is about what is lost being found, lights will have a strong effect on the tone and the way narrative is communicated. PCPA and Booher’s desire has been to tell this story in a way that is both true to the Shakespearean inspiration and yet carries an authentic connection and relevance to us here on the Central Coast today.
About the playwright --
Californian resident José Cruz González has spent his professional writing career developing new projects for theatre and television as well as educating writers and theatre practitioners. At South Coast Repertory Theatre, Cornerstone Theatre, as a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and as a professor at California State University Los Angeles, González has been a leader in modern American theatre, Hispanic theatre, and theatre for the young. In addition to Invierno and The Heart’s Desire for PCPA, his plays include The Blue House, Sunsets and Margaritas, Tomas and The Library Lady, The Cloud Gatherer, Earth Songs, Waking Up in Lost Hills, September Shoes, Harvest Moon, and Sunsets and Margaritas. The University of Texas Press has published a collection of his dramas (2009). He has been awarded a NEA/TCG Theatre Residency, a Pew/TCG Residency, an NEA Director fellowship and he is an associate artist with Cornerstone Theatre Company and a playwright-in-residence with Childsplay. |
