Quiquiriqui!

In case you haven’t brushed up on your Spanish recently, “quiquiriqui” is the sound that a rooster makes in Spanish. I haven’t heard that phrase since high school Spanish class and therefore was immediately transported back when I heard it tonight at the National Theater in San Salvador. Since it’s easier for my mind to travel while watching a play in Spanish, I had a moment of reflection thinking about how when I was in 9th grade learning animal noises. At that point, I’m confident that I had no idea years later I’d be living in El Salvador and watching a French woman perform a one-person rendition of Romeo and Juliet in the front row of the oldest theater in all of Latin America.

The evening was a delightful way to end the happy day of 09/10/11. It started out with a random group of 6 of us meeting up (with each of us knowing no more than 2 other people in the group) to go watch Romeo and Juliet be performed by a French group in Spanish at the National Theater downtown for $3! Though it was slated to begin at 6:30, Salvadoran time prevailed and the show started promptly at 7:10pm. We were able to spend that time getting to know each other: one person was from Malaysia and stopping through on his 18 month tour around the world, another was an aid worker who had previously lived in the Dominican Republic and Liberia and another had done a 3-month tour through southern and eastern Africa camping and living in a community…fascinating!

Before the show started, I wondered how much of the Spanish production I would understand but figured I would probably be better off in Spanish than Shakespearean English. I concluded that I was able to understand about 75% of the Spanish being spoken. It was made harder by the fact that the woman was French and had a unique accent, but that handicap was balanced out by the fact that we were sitting in the front row and I was able to see her lips moving (and a lot of spit!) which helps a lot.

Once the show got underway, I quickly realized that the play was going to be completely different from anything I could have ever imagined! It was essentially a one-woman production who played all characters but had two side-kicks primarily for setting and musical purposes. The lighting, props, and staging displayed incredible ingenuity and creativity. During one interlude, I watched incredulously as they turned an accordion, bass clarinet and saxophone into a sultry trio. Later, she portrayed both sides of a jousting match between Tybalt and Mercurtio and seamlessly conveyed both sides of the stabbing. In the final act, she depicted mourning Romeo stabbing himself next to “dead” (ragdoll) Juliet. As he died and Juliet came back to life, the dress from the ragdoll was transferred to the actress becoming conscious Juliet and inanimate Romeo. It was powerfully and imaginatively done.

The production held my attention in an enjoyable way and was certainly one of the most unique performances I’ve ever seen regardless of language or location! The Carolyn who learned animal noises in 9th grade Spanish had no idea that nearly 15 years later that knowledge would enable me to enjoy play in El Salvador in a more complete way (I was able to laugh along with the crowd at “quiquiriqui”, which definitely wasn’t true at other points.) I wonder what I’m learning today that will somehow enhance a life experience 15 years from now. What an exciting potentiality!