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Chilean
Stories to Come to Life on Smith Stage
A scene
from Cuentos de Eva Luna. (Photo by Jon Crispin.) |
The Smith Department of Theatre will present the first theatrical
adaptation of the best-selling and critically acclaimed novel Cuentos
de Eva Luna (Stories of Eva Luna), by Chilean author
Isabel Allende, with performances February 26 through 28
and March 4 through 7, at 8 p.m. in Hallie Flanagan Studio
Theatre, Mendenhall Center.
Tickets for Cuentos de Eva Luna are
$8 for general public, $5 for students and seniors. March
4 is “dollar
night” for students.
Translated from Spanish, adapted for the stage and directed
by Ellen W. Kaplan, professor of theater, the play brings
to life five stories from the novel. Servant girl and passionate
storyteller Eva Luna weaves magical tales of a woman who
captivates a revolutionary hero with two words, a miserly
two-timer who gets what he deserves, a circus showman who
woos a lady with tricks and laughter, a mango-killer and
two lovers who hide the crime, and a small girl trapped by
a landslide.
“Eva Luna is a Latina Scheherazade who lives to create
stories about love and danger,” Kaplan describes, “about
rascals, outlaws, and revolutionaries, and about wildly vivid
people who inhabit a South American world of truth and imagination.” Her
many colorful characters include: Tomas Vargas, braggart
and drunk; Rolf Carle, Eva’s lover, a man of compassion
and dark secrets; and Riad Halabi, a Turkish traveler, who
comes to Agua Santa and becomes its heart and soul. To create
this world of transformation, actors play multiple roles,
interweaving poetry, song, movement, and puppetry. Kaplan
comments, “With elegance and agility, the stories leap
across time and place to unveil the many sides of the heart.”
Isabel Allende, among
Latin America’s most celebrate
novelists, is the first Chilean woman writer to achieve international
renown. Her style is often compared to the magic realism
of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Allende began her career as a
journalist, and subsequently produced numerous novels, plays,
memoirs and short stories. Her first novel House of the
Spirits (1982), written while living in exile in Venezuela,
became a best seller and brought her fame and critical attention.
In 1987 she wrote the novel Eva Luna, about a servant
girl with a glittering imagination and a huge heart. Two
years later, Allende followed that novel with a sequel, Stories
of Eva Luna.
Kaplan’s recent
directing credits include Sisters
Rosensweig at New Century Theatre, Bellow on Stage at
The Egg, Albanay, N.Y., and With Dream Awakened Eyes,
based on the work of Charlotte Salomon. She has translated
several plays and has directed in Spanish in Costa Rica
and Puerto Rico. Kaplan also does extensive theatre outreach,
working with women in prison, adult learners, special education
students and teens.
For tickets or more information, call the Mendenhall box
office: 413-585-ARTS (2787), or consult the .
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