Fri 10/23-Sat 10/24 @ 7:30PM
Fri 10/30 & Sat 10/31 @ 7:30PM
Fri 11/6 & Sat 11/7 @ 7:30PM
Sun 10/25, Sun 11/1 & Sun 11/8 @ 2:30PM
The next production from Cleveland’s professional Hispanic theater LatinUs is A Puertas Abiertas, written by Argentine playwright Patricia Suarez.
Translated as Open Doors, we’re told that it “transports us to an unexpected hell: not of fire and brimstone, but of routines, guilt, and unresolved issues.” Sounds like most of our lives!
In it a strict school principal and an actress coexist, as they serve punishments overseen by an ophthalmologist in charge of examining their eyes and assigning them readings as part of their sentence. They’re interrupted by the arrival of Marina, who has made a bungled suicide pact with her lover. It’s loosely based on existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Satre’s 1944 one-at play No Exit. Amidst tension, irony, and confessions, the decisions that led them there will be revealed. Loosely inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit (Huis Clos: closed doors), Suárez puts her own spin on the work, adding humor and absurdity to the mix.
“In this space,” the synopsis says, “mysterious opportunities arise: ‘Open doors to reincarnation.’ The possibility of returning to Earth brings into play something deeper than the desire to escape. Is it really better to return? What does it mean to leave hell behind… or to remain in it? With intelligence, irony, and a profoundly human perspective, Open Doors transforms damnation into comedy and eternity into a second chance.”
The play, which runs for three weekends, is directed by Eddy Diaz Sousa in Spanish at LatinUs’s Black Box Theater in the Pivot Center. Go HERE for tickets.
a-puertas-abiertas-by-patricia-suarez