{"id":9560,"date":"2022-03-10T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9560"},"modified":"2022-05-05T08:21:02","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T12:21:02","slug":"baipas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9560","title":{"rendered":"Baip\u00e1s"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The nation\u2019s English-language premiere of acclaimed Puerto Rican artist Jacobo Morales\u2019s play Baip\u00e1s<\/em>, directed and choreographed by, Julio Monge, is currently on stage at George Street Playhouse. It premiered March 4 and runs through March 20 in New Brunswick, N.J.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Live theater has a special role in presenting real, flesh-and-blood people in challenging situations and seeing how they react, live, and, in the process, challenging audiences as well. Baip\u00e1s<\/em> (pronounced BI-pass) does that in ninety minutes while managing to be entertaining, romantic, sorrowful, and even funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A big part of its success can be attributed to the two performers: Maggie Bofill<\/a> as Lorena and Jorge Luna<\/a> as Antonio. They meet in a strange place\u2014a bare room that might be somewhere in a hospital. They are decidedly human in an abstract space.The most recent event she remembers is being on a respirator after a serious suicide attempt, and what he remembers is undergoing coronary bypass surgery. From time to time they are aware of their \u201creal\u201d bodies, wherever they are: His heartbeat stops, to be revived by a kiss from her; she takes a breath on her own. In these moments the play captures the terror and confusion of hospitalization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lorena and Antonio wonder about the room. What is it? A waiting room for death? Who are these people watching them (us)? Among us, they believe they see people from their past\u2014a dead ex-wife, a dead mother. Occasionally speaking about and to the audience is odd at first, yet makes us complicit in their search for understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They circle each other like wary housecats, each taking a turn expressing guilt, fear, hope. Lorena repeatedly voices her mantra, \u201clive in the moment,\u201d but can\u2019t quite do it, suffused by regrets and by curiosity about the future. Pre-heart attack, Antonio\u2019s life was a mess. You\u2019re relieved when they finally come into the moment to dance a love song, a bolero. Adrift in a sea of uncertainty, they find their moment in the dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story unfolds in a bare, elevated box, decorated occasionally with projections that mirror what is going on inside Lorena and Antonio\u2019s hearts. Mostly, there\u2019s nothing there for them to hang onto except each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Street should be congratulated for easing back into live-audience theater with such a complex, innovative, and memorable play. Author Morales is a poet, playwright, actor, and Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, while director Monge was an artistic collaborator on the recent high-powered remake of West Side Story, <\/em>a production on which George Street\u2019s Artistic Director, David Saint, served as Associate Producer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: T. Char<\/em>les Erickson<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The nation\u2019s English-language premiere of acclaimed Puerto Rican artist Jacobo Morales\u2019s play Baip\u00e1s, directed and choreographed by, Julio Monge, is currently on stage at George Street Playhouse. It premiered March 4 and runs through March 20 in New Brunswick, N.J. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":" A short play about the space between life and death. What perils and promises does it hold?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[269,366,104,147],"tags":[1270,1967,1968],"class_list":["post-9560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actor","category-drama","category-the-morgue","category-theater","tag-george-street-playhouse","tag-jacobo-morales","tag-julio-monge"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2NkiT-baipas","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9562,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9560\/revisions\/9562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}