El muerto comes alive at Hispanic Fest 2015
What gives you the dramatic suspense of a telenovela, the rhythmic drive of a hip-hop hit, and the historical insight of a PBS documentary – all in the same show? Theater with a Mission’s 30-minute bilingual farce called El muerto, or Better Wed than Dead, and it’s coming to Hispanic Fest this September.
El muerto was first published way back in 1658 – back when settlers from Spain were pouring into La Florida and using plays just like this one to celebrate historic milestones in their lives. After centuries of languishing on some dusty library shelf, this rollicking farce is roaring back to life onstage.
The story is hilarious: lovely young Eufrasia is in love with a dashing Astrólogo-Sailor, but her brother Capitán Lorenzo swears they’ll marry “over his dead body!” So Eufrasia and her friends put their heads together and figure out a way to convince Capt. Lorenzo he’s actually dead … and that only the dashing Astrólogo-Sailor can save him from the grave!
The language is electric: Theater with a Mission brings you the world’s first English-language production of the play, translated into rhyming English verse that’s peppered with spicy extracts from the original Spanish, complete with drinking songs and rowdy dances.
The impact is history-making: dressed in garb from the early 1700s, this performance takes you to Mission San Luis, where the action makes you an eyewitness to life on a military outpost in Spanish La Florida, and the performance invites you to think (as you laugh) about the lively ways that Hispanic culture lights up enduring ideas about marriage, family, and living happily ever after.
