by Jessica Del Curto
Daily Lobo
Theatre X opened their fall 2006 season with a poignant play about isolation, the tribulations of marriage and the impacts of war.
"References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot" by Jose Rivera is a timely piece that takes audience members into the secluded and confused life of a military housewife.
Gabriela is a lonely woman waiting for her husband Benito to come back from the Persian War. She has spent her nights sleeping in her backyard, having vivid hallucinations of the looming cactuses surrounding her house in the desert. She talks to the moon, finds comfort in her adolescent neighbor who is trying desperately to lose his virginity, and tries to keep tabs on her house cat who is having a love affair with a shady coyote who roams the desert.
Gabriela can't relate to the other military housewives. She takes night classes so she can learn about the Muslims her husband is fighting against in the war. She loves poetry and art and her biggest fear is that she and Benito no longer connect on any level other than the physical.
The play is perfectly cast. Gabriela is played by Gabi Rojas, a UNM dance major who bares a resemblance to actress Rosie Perez. She adds feistiness and depth to the character and at times sounds borderline neurotic as she begs Benito to leave the military and find a less violent job.
Babak Gharaei-Tafti is flawless as Benito, the hardworking Marine who wants nothing more than to return home and make love to his beautiful wife. It pains him when he thinks Gabriela sees him as a simple man, and he is torn between his two loves - the military and her.
The chemistry onstage between Rojas and Gharaei-Tafti is incredibly realistic, helping to guide the play and keep the poetrylike dialogue from getting lost in its own abstractness. Audiences will root for both characters in the end, because despite their flawed relationship, it's clear both just want to find the same moon they fell in love under in the first place.
Gharaei-Tafti doubles as the inconstant moon with a sharp sense of humor and a desire to seduce Gabriela. He sits atop the stage and watches quietly, putting his two cents in when the sun goes down.
The only music in the play is the consistent strumming of a guitar in the background - a fitting soundtrack to a play that unfolds almost like a love song under the direction of Asae Dean and choreography of Cynthia Boles-Montoya.
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"References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot" was the perfect play to jump-start another season of the student-run Theatre X.
