Senor Barber @ Ochre House Theater
—Photos by Justin Locklear
—Review by Jan Farrington
Ochre House Theater gives the devil his due in Señor Barber, the latest of the company’s almost-annual collaborations with the Dallas Flamenco Festival. The Devil in question is flamenco master Pepe Ruiz, and both he and fellow “bailaor” (dancer) Miguel Infante make quite a debut in Barber. Both are international stars of the flamenco world (once teacher and student, in fact), and join talented Festival organizers Delilah Buitrón Arrebola and husband Antonio Arrebola to give us heart-pounding flamenco in a setting about half the size of a nightclub.
If you’ve ever wanted to get up close and open-mouthed for a session of this extraordinary and powerful Spanish dance style…now’s your chance.
Ochre House artistic director Matthew Posey has sketched out a warm and comic framework of a play to surround the dancing, and it works. Performed in Spanish and English (actor/dancers Elizabeth Evans and Lauren Massey chime in with plot points now and again), it’s the shaggy story of a Devil (Ruiz) who decides to go on holiday. He asks a trio of Bruja’s (witches) to make him mortal for a time. Why? He wants to feel human emotions, and (surprise) to do some good deeds for a change. (For starters, he grants the witches’ wish to be young and beautiful again…for a while.)
The other “imported” artist of the show is composer Calvin Hazen, an internationally known “guitarrista” (a NYC-based “transplant from Madrid,” the program tells us) whose exquisite, driving, and quietly insistent music is the touchstone of the dancers’ performances. I could have listened to Hazen play all night, way past the end of this not-quite-90-minute show.
Posey directs, the four Spanish flamencos share credit for choreography, and both Posey and Justin Locklear contributed additional lyrics and music. Izk Davies’ set design (squared off white “arches” with silhouettes of trees, birds and more) and Kevin Grammer’s lighting frame the dancers simply and well. In a corner, witches spin and plot in masks and costumes by Fernando Hernandez and Ms. Buitrón Arrebola.
The story is a Faust-ian yarn about two brothers, cobbler Antonio (“I make nice shoes”), broken-hearted hermit Miguel (“I hate all of you”), and Antonio’s wife Triana (played by Ms. Buitrón Arrebola). Witches Elphaba (Evans) and Laché (Massey) kibitz on the edges and ably join the dancing, and Massey also plays Bella, a doll-pretty marionetta who looks like Miguel’s late wife. (Songs are carried primarily by Maestro Ruiz, whose light, piercing voice is just right, but the ensemble also breaks out in a well-sung tune or two.)
Each dancer has a distinct style, though there is commonality as well. Maestro Ruiz is contained and elegant, arms held close as he circles with incredibly precise footwork. The two Arrebolas, man and wife in the show as well, are compelling in solos, but dance with engaging instensity together. And Infante is the night’s powerhouse, his ability to center himself (hands twisting evocatively, stretching to heaven in a plea) as he produces an ever more astonishing sound on the boards of the Ochre House stage…well, it needs to be seen.
WHEN: Through November 5
WHERE: Ochre House Theater, 825 Exposition Avenue, Dallas
WEB: ochrehousetheater.org
