Apr 15

Hell Hath No Fury: “Don’t Eat the Mangos”

Left to right: Evelyn Howe, Jessica Pimentel, Yesenia Iglesias; photo by Marc J. Franklin.

Written by Ricardo Pérez González
Directed by David Mendizábal
Featuring: Jessica Pimentel, Yesenia Iglesias, Evelyn Howe, Susanna Guzmán, José Ramón Rosario
Voice of Radio: José C. Massó III
Fight Director and Intimacy Coach: Ted Hewlett

March 26 – April 27, 2025
The Huntington Calderwood
527 Tremont Street. Boston, MA 02116

Content warnings: Don’t Eat the Mangos includes frank discussion of past sexual assault, incest, and traumatic forced abortion. The play includes depictions of patriarchal control in a family setting, at-home end-of-life care, and violent suffocation. There is a brief discussion of suicide and the inclusion of homophobic and sexist slurs.

This play is performed in English and Spanish. 

BOSTON — After the first seeing the striking mango tree (designed by Tanya Orellana with rising sunlight designed by Cha See) burdened with tangibly ripe fruit next to a cozily busy cottage, the audience hears the silence-splitting call of the Puerto Rican coquí frog. (I’ve never been to P.R., but I’ve heard the coquí’s invasive rant from inside my family’s home on Big Island, Hawai’i enough times to recognize the frog’s plaintive call for nonrecreational booty even in my nightmares.) 

The sound design by Jake Rodriguez layers the persistent morning call of coquís under the clanging of daily housework in Don’t Eat the Mangos’ first moments. Shortly after the first lines of dialogue, a ringing bell joins the coquís call. These sounds, with director David Mendizábal’s staging, plus the tense character work between the actors, indicate that something is not right in this house.  Continue reading

Nov 04

The Power of Radical Imagination: “On the Eve of Abolition”

Photo by Ricardo Alcaraz.

Presented by Arts Emerson
Written by Papel Machete
Directed by Jorge ‘Cano Cangrejo’ Díaz Ortiz
Directing team: Deborah Hunt and Sugeily Rodríguez Lebrón
Selected voices by Rob Thelusma, Krystal Clark, Mumia Abu-Jamal
Puppet and mask design and direction by Deborah Hunt
Lighting design by Luis Felipe Rivera Santiago
In community partnership with Prison Radio and Sisters Unchained

October 31 – November 3, 2024
Emerson Paramount Center, Robert J. Orchard Stage
559 Washington Street Boston, MA 02111
Tickets here

Critique by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

Content advisory: flashing lights, strong language, gun violence

BOSTON — In Papel Machete’s On the Eve of Abolition, an ensemble of multi-talented performers demonstrate the power of imagination on two levels.

For one, there is the majesty of inventive storytelling. Papel Machete presents an ever-unfolding series of theatrical surprises: doll-sized prison doors open to reveal cells where marionette revolutionaries bide time until their uprising; pop-up book scenes of abolition camps and prisons are displayed simultaneously on stage and through video projection; characters appear in a variety of awe-inspiring configurations, from tiny figurines trapped in paper prisons to life-sized dancers in detailed, expressive masks. Continue reading

Aug 24

“Cloud Tectonics”: Love is Love is Love is Love

CLOUD TECTONICS by José Rivera, production poster

Presented by Fort Point Theatre Channel
by José Rivera
Director: Jaime Carrillo
Musicians: Nick Thorkelson, Mitchel Ahern, Anaís Azul, Francis Xavier Norton, Luz Lopez, Fernando Barbosa
FPTC on Facebook

Aug 8th @ 6:00pm
Hyde Square Task Force
30 Sunnyside Street, Jamaica Plain
(In Boston’s newly designated Latin Quarter!)

Aug 14th @ 7:30pm
The Fort Point Room at Atlantic Wharf
290 Congress Street, Boston

Aug 17th & 18 @ 7:30pm
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
949 Commonwealth Ave., Boston

Aug 21th @ 7:30 pm
Gloucester Stage
267 East Main Street, Gloucester

Review by Diana Lu

(Various locations, MA) I remember once chatting with a friend about Japanese media. He mentioned that in a lot of Japanese narratives, a nuclear disaster occurs and the rest of the story deals with the aftermath. That rarely happens in American narratives, he noted, which focus on anxiety about impending disaster. That is, what we in the US fear the most, has already happened in Japan.  Later, I heard a podcast discuss The Handmaid’s Tale. In it, one host observed that Atwood’s gruesome fictional future is actually the reality of the past, for black slave women. Continue reading