Culture & Memory

We won the poster signed by the cast!!

We went out to dinner last night with our friends Angus and Rolonde from the boat Periclees and then joined them for a cultural event… a high school play put on by the students of the Colegio Americana here in Puerto Vallarta. This brave little troupe had decided to enact West Side Story!! When I say “brave,” I mean really, truly brave. The talent pool for this small school has to be fairly small to begin with and for them to put on West Side Story, a musical, is astounding when you think about the full cast needing to sing a complex set of songs. In my senior year of high school I got involved with a minor part in the school play and realized how much went into a stage production. This was my frame of mind when we got to the theater and I was not disappointed in any way!

As the story began to unfold I noted the differences in production. The set was very well done and, although fairly simple, the lighting was well done. Each of the cast had on some sort of remote microphone many of which worked. The costuming was easy since the depiction was semi-modern day. The language was the spicily accented version of English with Spanish overtones that I enjoy in Latin America… and the kids were from all over the place (US, Mexico and some beyond). The energy of the presentation was superb in all ways. You just cannot beat the teenage exuberance exhibited last night.

Going back to the “brave” part of this; as mentioned the talent pool is small for such an ambition undertaking as this musical is. One would think that it would be an important characteristic, for the lead players at least, to have silken voices and sing on key. Well, as one who has a fairly good ear I can attest to the fact that the pool was small enough to set the voice requirement aside for many of the actors. There was singing talent there to be sure. The girl acting the part of Maria was very impressive in voice but her counterpart was sans an ear altogether. You might think that this made for a painful rendition of the play but you would be only partially correct. By the time we were about a quarter of the way through the production he had endeared himself to me as fantastically brave individual. Thankfully, I noted from the program, that this lad is going to enter the world of computer science after graduation (unlike many of his fellow actors taking the direction of the arts in one way or another) and the world will be spared his singing except perhaps in the adjoining pews in church. He cannot have been ignorant of his lack of singing ability but persisted through to a very satisfying end of the musical with his part. I can give him all the applaud (myself surely being the singular set of hands clapping for his resolve) that is surely his due for having even made the attempt at such a difficult task. And, kudos to the director for his selection as well, (knowing that his singing would not hold the riveting center of the effort that the rest of the cast gave their all for) it was a very wonderful evening!!