‘Persona’ @ Teatro Dallas (XXI Int’l Theater Festival)

—Teresa Marrero

This year Teatro Dallas is presenting three plays in its 2024 XXI International Theater Festival: on February 10th Persona (Mexico); on February 17th La Celestina-Tragicomedia de Lita (Argentina, based on the 1466 classical Spanish play and using clown techniques); and on February 24th Una buena abogada (a courtroom drama from Venezuela). All plays are in Spanish with English synopsis.

After a few years of mixed media presentations rather than straight theater, Teatro Dallas returns to the Spanish-language tradition created by Cora Cardona, its now retired founder. At the one-night-only performance of February 10, 2024 at the mainstage Latino Cultural Center, Mexico´s Corazón Compañía Creativa brought to Dallas an audacious version of Ingmar Bergman´s Swedish signature psychological film Persona (1966).

According to film experts, Persona is one of the most critically acclaimed yet contested films of all time. It defies definitive interpretations, yet demonstrates signature Bergman characteristics: visual experimentation and psychological depth. In this sense, the Mexican stage version does the film’s auteur justice, but with variations on his themes.

But first, about the original film: Elizabet Vogler (Liv Ullman) is a theater actress who falls silent in the middle of playing the role of Electra. She is hospitalized, but her doctor finds nothing physically wrong with her. A nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson), is assigned to spend some time with Elizabet in the doctor´s summer seaside residence.

While there, Alma becomes more and more talkative, sharing some of her darkest secrets (an orgy, an unwanted pregnancy and an abortion). The women become closer and closer, so much so that viewers surely begin to question the nature of their relationship. They seem to have fused together, although Elizabeth speaks only one word, at the very end: “Nothing.” In the film there is a pre-pubescent son who is seen by viewers at the beginning and end of the film. He seems to be touching a reflection of his mother, but wait: is it her, or is it the nurse?

Bergman reportedly cast Ullman and Andersson in part for their uncanny resemblance to one another: in one emblematic shot created in post-production, the two are fused together as one face. In the film, the son is not an active, physical character. The only other male, appearing briefly, is Elizabet´s blind husband, who seems to confuse Alma with his wife.

Now to the play. On his website, Corazón Compañía director Gutemberg Brito underlines the company´s interest in eroticism onstage—clearly evident in this theatrical production of Persona. Both the film and the play follow a similar overall plot; however, the play makes some significant changes—most obviously, that this Alma is just about as silent as Elizabet.

Another change: the Corazón adaptation inserts a young-adult version of the Son (Natanael Ríos) into the narrative, adding an erotic, incestuous complexity not evident in the film. In fact, the play’s Son is caught between Alma and Elizabet. Only a few minutes prior to curtain was the audience informed that this play had adult content. There was nothing said about having the Son appear in full-frontal nudity, an issue that may have caused discomfort to some.

In the film Alma is the sun and Elizabet seems to be a planet circling around her. In the stage play, Elizabet´s highly eroticized body plays center role. She is dressed in a sheer, see-through sheath of a gown; her erect nipples become a clear visual focal point. As Elizabet, Judith Inda’s statuesque body and long hair accentuate her silent and enigmatic presence.

Pilar Couto´s Alma, on the other hand, looks nothing like Inda. Thus, the physical similarity of the two “personae” (the basis of the film casting) is absent in the play. And (in contrast with the film) she is as silent as Elizabet, thus placing both actresses in an abstract physical give-and-take that suggests both are contending for the Son´s attention, if not affection.

The blending of both Elizabet and Alma is not suggested here. While there are moments in which both are physically close, I got the impression that this Elizabet felt superior to Alma, and Alma was never really attracted to Elizabet. At the beginning and end of the play, Alma wears a dress that suggests a nurse´s stiff, white gown—but at the mid-point, she is dressed in a sheer gown similar to Elizabet’s. This was, I think, a visual indicator of the possible merging of the two women, but it was not matched emotionally in performance.

The insertion of the Son as the object of desire by both women shifted the plot irreparably. No longer demonstrating desire toward each other, the women simply became competitors over a Son whose naked body was not that of a boy, but a young man. The gaze is no longer an investigation into the psyche of two complex women, but rather two women engaged in a struggle over male Son´s attention and desire.

The play was accompanied by a stunning original musical score for strings and voice, composed by Francisco Manríquez Fernández, with Atziry Rivera (soprano) Fabián Flores Muñoz (violin), Samuel Morgan (viola), Luis Ángel Ballesteros Apodaca (violoncello), Emmanuel Pool (contra tenor and recorder), and composer Fernández on percussion.

The stage was minimally set, with a small white bathtub on one side, a sit-upon cube in the center, and more seating structures on the other side. The structures doubled creatively as places to hide, and the bathtub became the focus of an erotic scene in which mother Elizabet sponge-bathed her Son (not in the film version).

The “birth” of the Son was marked with huge, drop-down paper and (clear) plastic scrims. The paper scrim downstage and closest to the audience is ripped by the Son as a sort of birth. Unfortunately, mounds of paper were thrown about in a way that totally obstructed the stage view of those seated in the first few rows ( including me). We engaged in a seat-shifting game, making an attempt to see the action hidden by these sudden visual obstructions. I suggest the first few rows be blocked off—or that the paper be dispersed in a way that doesn’t obscure audience view.

The play ran approximately 90 minutes with several false endings: just when we thought it was over, another set of actions began. It felt as though the audience was never sure the play had ended or when to applaud.

While I am not squeamish about seeing nudity on stage, and the comments at the end of the play by TD representatives centered on ‘opening our minds,’ it is standard practice to inform the audience ahead of time about any adult content, including nudity or eroticism bordering on incest. I understand that in Latin America and Europe nudity onstage is no big deal, but this is Texas.

The performance by the actors was up to the demands of the abstraction of the piece, and in several instances the notion that the acting was more filmic than theatrical crossed my mind. And there was enough pathos in the piece to make it stand-alone worthy (regardless of the Bergman film).

Teresa Marrero is Professor of Latin American and Latiné theater, culture and literatures at the University of North Texas. She also reviews dance.

WHEN: February 10; upcoming festival dates February 17 and 24
WHERE: Latino Cultural Center, 2600 Live Oak, Dallas
WEB: for festival details, teatrodallas.org