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Texas touch makes 'El Paraiso' a hit
Production at the Off Center includes 'dream-like sets' and 'engaging' acting from cast of six
By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Monday, April 29, 2002

What does paradise look like to you? Might it look just like Texas? What if we've been in paradise all along and just didn't know it?

The Rude Mechs think they're in paradise. "El Paraiso" - a play created by the company's five artistic directors, including playwright Kirk Lynn and director Shawn Sides - is the Rudes' valentine to the true west. The place where "sometimes things are something else all together." The place where maybe, just maybe, if you stop thinking so much, you might find your heart's desire.

James Dean (Jason Liebrecht), dressed as though he just stepped off the set of "Giant," has just died and crossed over into a limbo that looks an awful lot like a West Texas whisky bar. There, he meets three women, tough little Marfa (Lana Lesley), luscious Mercedes (Carra Martinez) and the sultry Lily Langtry (Sarah Richardson), walking embodiments of the Texas towns named for them. At the same time, following Dean through this dusty netherworld is philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (Harvey Guion), proffering his famous propositions, instructing all to "look in a new direction."

After lots of heavy drinking, silly dancing and outrageously funny country-and-western karaoke, everyone knocking about El Paraiso might achieve that state where, as Wittgenstein says, "desire and intellect gather in a single moment."

Scenic designer Leilah Stewart covered the warehouse stage at the Off Center with several inches of sand and then kept going, spreading it beneath the audience's seats as well. The cast members make keen use of the sand, trudging through it as they wander around limbo, Marfa and the cowboy Casey (René Alvarado) sending it whipping around during their knock-down, drag-out fistfight.

The dream-like set features some wooden oil derricks, a set of swinging barroom doors, a bar and three television monitors that run black-and-white video images of West Texas. Music from Peter Stopschinski and Graham Reynolds of Brown Whornet and Golden Arm Trio fame furthers the sense of whip-smart pastiche.

With engaging work from all six cast members it's hard to isolate individual performances, though Liebrecht's Dean is a terrific fusion of subtle mannerisms and restlessness bordering on violence. And Alvarado's physical evocation of the 'gee-whiz' bullrider with a heart of gold is an attention magnet.

"El Paraiso" is the result of a road trip the company took last fall to the famous Marfa mystery lights. After their success in New York City last summer with the much-lauded "Lipstick Traces," the Rude Mechs started thinking about what it means to be an artist in Texas. "This play isn't about any one thing in particular except what it feels like to be a wanting, thinking Texan," the company writes in the production notes.

OK - maybe not one thing in particular. But more than anything else, "El Paraiso" is about having the wherewithal to chase your heart's desire, and the intellect to recognize it. And wherewithal, intellect and desire are three things the Rude Mechs have in spades.