La Carpa del Maestro (Miracle Theatre)

[October 29th, 2008]

Mexico, like most Latino cultures, has a pervasive cult of the dead that sees its fullest expression in the ancestor worship and macabre partying of Dia de los Muertos. In the U.S., we go to great lengths to ensure our ancestors stay buried, pumping them full of preservatives and dumping concrete on their coffins. We’ve replaced ancestor worship with a cleaner and more profitable reverence for nostalgia that sees fullest expression in early evening programming on public television. Why not combine the two?

La Carpa del Maestro, the third edition of Miracle Theatre Group’s annual Day of the Dead variety shows, marries the cadaverous dances of Oaxaca to the cheerful apocalypticism of Eisenhower-era suburbia, interspersing skeletal salsa with happily macabre parodies of advertising from the Atomic Age (“eat Geiger-pops!”).

This year’s production shares much in common with the previous two: cadaverous makeup, flag-dancing by Daniel Moreno, acrobatics by CarlosAlexis Cruz and Tera Nova Zarra (co-founder of ninja-rock band Fist of Dishonor), salsa, song, slapstick and comedic vignettes tied together by a shoestring of a plot. There are some new additions, but the formula remains the same.

By rights, Miracle’s Carpas (named for Mexico’s traditional variety shows, customarily held under a carpa, or tent) should be cheesy-but-comforting spectacles on the order of the Christmas Revels, but director Philip Cuomo has higher aspirations.

Cuomo, a member of Third Rail Repertory who teaches at Portland Actors Conservatory, manages to infuse these light entertainments with real pathos and, this year, a substantial dose of creepiness. A wistful sadness and somber grace pervade even the comic elements the show, occasionally broken by moments of cackling-skeleton eeriness. Although the production is arranged around the relationship of master and apprentice, the thrust of the show is more consumer-meets-mortality. “Buy Geiger-pops,” it says. “You’re going to die anyway.”