3 Puppet Pieces -2

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Kalob Martinez 

El Beto

writer, director: Kalob Martinez

performers: Martinez and Natalia Cuevas

composer: Lucas Gorham

3D modeler: Leslie Prunier

projections: Joseph Rosen

El Beto is a word with many meanings and implications. It can be a nick name. It might mean a large sexual organ, or a lucky person, or a crazy person. Either a king of Scotland or a drug lord in Mexico might acquire that nickname if they were big enough, crazy enough, and/or lucky enough. Martinez uses the story of Macbeth and images of Mexico to draw parallels between those two types of overwhelming ambition. He uses famous monologues from the Scottish play as the script of his drama. But sometimes he speaks in English and sometimes in Spanish. Often code switching in mid soliloquy. The effect is compelling; we hear the well known speeches in a different timbre.  Kalob Martinez brings the speeches from Shakespeare to life. He knows what the phrases mean and speaks them so as to help us understand how those words come together as a story. The puppets and projections hold our attention. This show would be a great introduction to Macbeth for a younger audience.

In the course of the three-play evening there were only four performers, two women and two men, both women moved with an awareness of their body that bespoke training in dance and consciousness of the fact that every part of the mise en scene is important, and that the puppeteer is part of the mise en scene. 

Although Natalia Cuevas did not operate a puppet but acted in El Beto, she was able to fit her body and her emotions into the production at hand. She moves like a dancer and has an awareness of her body and her character's orientation in the stage space. She seems to be completely fluent in both English and Spanish. Cuevas is capable of carrying a much larger role.