Departing from its tradition of reviving theatrical classics, Antaeus Theatre Company opens its 2019/2020 season with the West Coast Premiere of The Abuelas, Stephanie Alison Walker’s mostly disappointing follow-up to The Madres.

That 2018 Skylight Theatre hit focused on the mothers whose sons and daughters began disappearing by the thousands during the “dirty war” waged by the Argentine military dictatorship on its own citizens beginning in the mid-1970s.

The Abuelas, set in Chicago some forty years later, deals with “the living disappeared,” newborns torn from their imprisoned (and soon to be murdered) mother’s wombs and adopted by well-to-do Argentinian families, some of these aware of the crime they were committing, others not.

Posing the question, “What would you do if you discovered that your entire life has been a lie?” The Abuelas introduces us to 37-year-old Argentina-to-U.S.A. transplant Gabriela (Luisina Quarleri), principal cellist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, her Anglo architect husband Marty (Seamus Dever), their offstage baby Lucas, and Gabriela’s visiting-from-Argentina mother Soledad (Denise Blasor).

Also prominent among the cast of characters is 30something Argentinian forensic anthropologist Cesar (David DeSantos), who after striking up a conversation with Soledad in church, not only gets himself invited to her birthday party but shows up with an uninvited guest (Irene De Bari as Carolina) in tow.

Even more inappropriately, he promptly launches into an atmosphere-dampening recollection of the afternoon his “appropriator” revealed to her then teenage son the horrific circumstances surrounding his birth, thereby severing their relationship and sending him on a mission to locate other children of the disappeared.

Three guesses as to why Cesar finagled tonight’s invitation, and it’s not because Carolina is Gabriela’s biggest fan.

The best thing about The Abuelas is the light it shines on an ugly (and still continuing chapter) in Argentine history, that and the standout performances delivered by the radiant Quarleri and the dashing Dever, scenes between them crackling with the tension of a marriage tested to the almost breaking point a couple years back.

Unfortunately, much of The Abuelas verges on telenovela-style melodrama (including a totally out-of-the-blue bit of extramarital lust) not helped by Blasor’s overwrought performance and its innumerable unscripted pauses.

Director Andi Chapman fares better with DeSantos and De Bari, but Carolina Montenegro (who shows up from time to time as a pregnant desaparecida) plays her big scene (one of The Abuela’s weirdest and weakest) opposite Quarleri with the voice of a little old lady and not that of a young woman in her twenties.

It doesn’t help that playwright Walker has her Argentinian characters talking amongst themselves in English (perhaps unavoidable but artificial nonetheless), nor is the Argentina-born-and-raised Gabriela’s pitch-perfect American accent ever explained.

Finally, The Abuelas runs a good twenty minutes too long, with at least two false endings before the real one (a TV-movie cliche) finally hits.

At the very least The Abuelas looks fabulous thanks to scenic designer Edward E. Haynes, Jr.’s classy high-rise apartment set and a Lake Michigan view that changes magically before our eyes depending on the weather (much of it Chicago at its wintry worst) thanks to Adam R. Macias’s stunning projection designer.

Wendell C. Carmichael’s costumes (Gabriela’s dreamy dresses in particular), Andrew Schmedake’s mood-enhancing lighting, Jeff Gardner’s Argentine-music-flavored sound design, and David Saewart’s properties (from cello to birthday cake to maté cup) are all absolutely terrific too.

Jessica E. Williams is assistant director. Karen Osborne is production stage manager. Lauren Lovett is dialect coach. Bo Foxworth is fight choreographer. Indira Tyler is choreographer. Ryan McRee is dramaturg.

Having been drawn into The Madres’ world of terror on the streets of Buenos Aires, my expectations for The Abuelas were high. Sad to say, they were not met.

Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center, 110 East Broadway, Glendale.
www.Antaeus.org

–Steven Stanley
October 20, 2019
Photos: Jenny Graham

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Stephanie Alison Walker, The Antaeus Company