MIAMI.- The actress of theaterMexican television, film, playwright and teacher Conchi Len, brought to the 38th edition of the Miami International Hispanic Theater Festival the work Lion Cub, Almost Everything About My Fathera text written by its author and directed by the actress herself.
Conchi Len is the founder of the company SaAs Tun, in Merida, Yucatan, and a few years ago, in 2016, she brought the play to the same Avante Theater Festival From the spring of the hearta work that captures the world of the Mayab in several scenes, with its people, beliefs and rituals. His presence again in Miami augured a promising show, and so it turned out.
Although in art reality and fiction are always interrelated, Len dog goes one step further by being deeply testimonial. It is an emotional, intimate and personal proposal, which is presented as a biographical text by the author/director, which gives the work, in addition to all the elements of testimony, the most challenging one: courage in the nakedness of the soul and emotions. Only someone who has truly assimilated almost all of life’s blows is capable of presenting themselves to the public with a one-man show where they expose feelings that are generally thought, but not expressed.
The putting into scene The book uses multimedia to show the members of the Len family and other figures who have been part of the author’s life. It opens with a phone call to tell her that her father is dying. From that moment on, a journey marked by memories begins, going back to when she was 4 years old. The van driven by her father, the beatings of her mother, alcoholism, children’s toys, an accident that brought the girl to the brink of death and was saved precisely thanks to the action of her father and other family episodes.
The stage fabric is very well achieved, with a seat that connects to the van, some plastic toys that transport us to the most innocent childhood, a blanket that symbolizes hospitalization, the mention of the father’s bar friends. At all times, it is punctuated by the music of the Mexican idol Pedro Infante, who lived in Mérida and who his father knew. The use of several cassette tapes is a resource that achieves visual and sound effects, firmly dramatizing the narration, which flows with expressive naturalness. And that is an important point, because Conchi León does not act: she says, she does not dramatize: she exposes; the theatrical is what surrounds her, she imposes herself on the stage in addition. That is why the exquisite final detail with her father’s truck.
For this viewer, there was a surprising fact. The actress tells the story of a man from the village who was missing both arms at shoulder level, and who drove a motorcycle adapted to his needs. When she told the anecdote, I remembered having seen this man driving around the main square of Mérida.
Lion Cub, Almost Everything About My Fatheris a work for the enjoyment of the senses, strong, emotional, and very beautiful.
