Her name was Lola ...
Oct. 7—details
—Lola's Last Dance and Astonishing Light — Conversations I Never Had with Patrociño Barela
—7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13-14; 2 p.m. Oct. 15, and Oct. 16; 7:30 p.m. Oct. 20-22; and 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 23.
—Teatro Paraguas, 3205 Calle Marie
—Tickets are $25, with discounts available; 505-424-1601, teatroparaguasnm.org
During a pivotal sequence of the play Lola's Last Dance by the late E.A. "Tony" Mares, dolls portrayed by actors awaken and dance in front of the titular character, a retired prostitute who's unwittingly facing her final hours of life.
Animating that sequence — the dolls' stillness, followed by sudden movement, as well as the slightly unsettling mood Mares sculpted for the play — is among the challenges facing director Paola Vengoechea Martini for the Teatro Paraguas production that begins Thursday, Oct. 13. It includes both the play and a staged reading of a Mares poem, Astonishing Light — Conversations I Never Had with Patrociño Barela.
The dolls represent figures from Lola's past — the banker, the senator, the rag-and-bone man. The play was inspired by Mares' interactions with retired prostitutes during his early years in Albuquerque's Old Town in the 1940s.
Bringing the dolls to life is not easy, Vengoechea Martini says, in part because it's challenging for the actors to remain still. "What I try to focus on is remembering that they were once alive; they're not zombies. They're very ingrained in her memory."
Colorful, sociable Lola (Corinna MacNeice) is the focus of attention for most of the one-act play and provides much of its dialogue.
Lola's Last Dance had been scheduled for August, but COVID-19 cases among cast members forced a delay. Teatro Paraguas previously staged the play — which refers to Lola's repeated refrain, "I think I have one last dance in me" — in 2017, Vengoechea Martini says. Teatro Paraguas co-founder Argos MacCallum, who is MacNeice's husband, says he is drawn to Mares' work.
"He was just an amazing person," MacCallum says. "He was a poet, playwright, professor, translator. He was a community activist. And he actually was in one of our productions. When we did a tribute to the poet Ángel González, [Mares] actually took part on the stage with us."
Mares translated some works by González into English. González, who died in 2008, taught contemporary Spanish literature at the University of New Mexico from the mid-1970s to mid-'90s.
MacCallum sees the production as a brief tribute to Mares. The 20-page script runs about 30 minutes. Astonishing Light is about an hour.
"Presenting one-act plays is always a big challenge," MacCallum says. It involves creating "a whole world in a short space of time, without the luxury of several acts."
MacCallum is tackling that challenge by conducting extremely detailed rehearsals and analyzing each gesture, movement, and line. Nine actors are involved in Lola's Last Dance: JoJo Sena de Tarnoff, Alex Streeper, Noah Simpson, Lynette Gonzales, Rudy "Froggy" Fernandez, Desaili Gomez, Carlos de la Torre, and MacCallum. Two actors — Marcos Maez and Jonathan Harrell — are featured in Astonishing Light — Conversations I Never Had with Patrociño Barela.
The title of the latter refers to Mares' imagined discussions with Barela, a famed Taos woodcarver in the 1930s through '60s. It's directed by MacCallum.
Both actors will read from scripts, which discuss topics such as artistic creation and love.
They'll be on the set for Lola's Last Dance, with one side of the stage occupied by Lola's bed and the other by wagons and other decor meant to mimic a bar.
Sena de Tarnoff plays the bony-faced woman, Death, in Lola's Last Dance. She also pitched in when Vengoechea Martini was ill with COVID-19 during early preparations for the production.
"I went ahead and put the structure to it, hoping that [Vengoechea Martini] would be OK to come in and do the remaining three weeks left and make it really start sparkling," she says. "And, lo and behold, that did happen."
Lola's Last Dance might have an air of the unearthly, but it isn't downbeat, Vengoechea Martini says.
"The story is filled with sex and scandal and laughter and love and all that kind of wondrous merriment that these kinds of tales provide," she says. "On top of the eeriness, there's a lot of fun."
Live musical accompaniment will be provided by Harrell on guitar and Jeff Tarnoff on keyboard.
Mares' brother Michael Mares and widow, Carolyn Meyer, will attend one of the productions, MacCallum says.
"So we've got to make sure we do it right."
About E.A. Mares
Ernesto Antonio "Tony" Mares, who was born in Old Town in Albuquerque in 1938, had a doctoral degree in European history from the University of New Mexico and taught at various colleges. His other plays include Padre Antonio José Martinez de Taos (1983), El Corrido de Joaquin Murieta (1984), Santa Fe Spirit (1989), and Shepard de Pan Duro (1989).
UNM's English Department gives out an annual Dr. E.A. "Tony" Mares Award for Chicano Literature Endowment to students to support Chicano poetry, history, and literature. Mares retired from the school in the late 1990s.
Mares died in 2015 at age 76.
