REVIEW: Aguardiente (GALA Hispanic Theatre)
Ever since February’s Benito Bowl, I’ve been totally back on my Spanish learning game. I’m in classes, I’m texting in Spanish, even rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender in it. But I have been waiting with baited breath for GALA to drop another show for me to sink my language-receiving teeth into. The first foray? A world premiere musical that engrosses the spirit of the Hispanosphere Caribbean. Es como si supieran que iba a venir.
Book/Music
Have you ever played the Assassin’s Creed video games? If not, here’s a basic plot overview: a modern-day guy named Desmond Miles gets put in a machine that makes him relive the memories of his ancestors, who are part of an elite old-world assassin brotherhood. The acclaim of the series comes from these sections, where you get to stealthily kill off sultans, corrupt priests, and redcoats galore over different historical eras. Desmond himself, despite being the actual focus of the story, is generally dull, and his modern-day sections usually elicit whiplash by how unimpressive they are compared to the historical bits.
Aguardiente largely suffers this same fate. Those expecting a flowery collage of musical tradition and flavor might be a little thrown off by the immediate introduction of Alberto and Alejandro, two modern-day composers click-clacking away at a new musical in a New York City office. They hit a wall with ideas, a particular problem for Ale as he seeks to lock in his Green Card status. Luckily for them, the dimensionless Kiara — her only reason to exist is seemingly to be a snappy woman who knows how to use Instagram — arrives with all her terminally-online banter, and moves them to write from the heart about their culture. All the lush greenery thrown around from the premise finally arrives about 20 minutes in, when the show they write starts appearing as interstitles. Now we get to meet Azuquita and Anis, two lovers from the small village of Aguardiente who ditch their home to make it big in New York. The show from here has to make a choice on its focus: the plight of our real-life protagonists, whose livelihoods are threatened by capitalism, or the magical realism of our sweetly-named storymakers.
It chooses both at the same time, which leaves nobody particularly excited, but very whelmed. The Desmond-iness of the modern ones feature an uncompelling sub-plot involving a semi-successful show of theirs currently running in London, and a pushy European producer who leads them astray. Said producer even gets his own musical number, which like much of the English parts of the score, felt unearned and out of place (conversely, the Spanish songs are quite well-written). This could be fine if the “Aguardiente” part picked up the slack like the assassin sections in Creed, but neither do they. In fact, there are numerous red herrings that this section seems to throw, which I could respect were it paralleled in the real-life scenes. Yet even those pale in comparison to the sheer oddity of the main conflict in it, in which the two are roped into a traveling circus-Starbucks™️-tavern-carny show hybrid. It eventually leads into a love…shape?…that comes out of nowhere and is not resolved with any emotional justification.
I left feeling particularly sour about Aguardiente, not because I wasn’t able to understand the passion in it, but that it collapses under it so much that said passion is hidden behind clouds of debris. 2/10
Acting
Where Aguardiente positively grabs your attention the most is in its delightful performances. The ensemble, hailing from all around the Caribbean (and Spain) according to opening night bows, are synergetic as they blaze around GALA’s stage. Alberto and Alejandro, a firmly acted pair between Samuel Garnica and Sebastian Trevino, hold down the story’s grasp at sense; and even though I was not a fan of the character, Shayla Hernandez’s Kiara is a plucky performance you can’t really look away from. 7/10
Production
I have to start with the projections, which are so offensively terrible and unchecked that it noticeably drags the entire production down, assaulting the retina like nails on a chalkboard would to the ears. If this seems harsh, don’t worry: they clearly weren’t made by humans, so there’s nobody to be offended.
I have developed some (reluctant) tolerance for generative AI in projection work over the years, just so we’re clear. I’ve had good conversations with talented projection designers in theatre who use it to create fantastical effects combined with a human eye for composition and direction. In essence, it shouldn’t look or feel like a computer did all the work if it was done right, and should be replicable by a human. But it is blatant in this production no such care was taken with it. Consider neon New York signs that say “PIZA”, parallel waterfalls with two different speeds of gravity —why was one of them goopy?—, and my personal favorite, a “ONE WAY” sign which had arrows on both sides. (I guess it’s still one way, as long as everyone picks the same way.) Given the bleeding heart at the center of this piece, putting next to zero effort in the primary staging device (there’s not much of a set) indicates a cut corner that undermines its earnestness. The parts that AI can’t replace, such as its stony choreography, have some opportunities to make it up, but aren’t consistent enough to do so even with its breathy Act II dance numbers. 1/10
Viz
The use of AI doesn’t stop at the in-shows projections. The program art, featuring a Very Green Man, has that aura of generation about it, but it’s the pre-show projections that confirm it with jungle scenes that are over-rendered and lettering that morphs into each other. Additionally, the subtitle, Where Magic Transcends Borders, may speak to the attitudes of the audience and the author, but does not indicate anything about the trajectory of the show whatsoever besides it being a musical potluck of Hispanic musical tradition. 0/10
Verdict
Aguardiente is a musical that has a lot of noise at its core, and perhaps something heartfelt, too; but seldom is executed well enough to make it work. 10/40
