Review: ‘River Bride’ at City Lights Theater digs deep into Amazonian folklore

The Amazon River contains a deep richness that may provide answers to life’s mysteries such as love and longing. For the folks who inhabit a tiny Brazilian fishing village on the river, the lore of the river’s past and present inform every ounce of their being; it’s a body of water each citizen relies on for answers.

City Lights Theater Company’s production of Marisela Treviño Orta’s insightfully magical production of “The River Bride” is a delight, bringing forth a narrative that explores pairs of lovers at different moments in their lives. While performances feel like there may be another gear of urgency to be unearthed, it is solid storytelling from a young, fresh-faced ensemble cast.

Director John R. Lewis moves the story briskly, although some moments need less slack. It’s a tricky staging, where the action occasionally interrupts and upstages potentially stunning tableaus. Still, in Lewis’ hands, the piece regales in its commitment to Treviño Orta’s lyrical language, loaded with mythical poetry, which is quite nourishing for the soul.

For the loquacious and spoiled sister Belmira (Salma Zepeda), mere days from locking up her future with the dashing Duarte (Arturo Montes), her giddiness takes over. Might she explore the potential of hiring a maid? These petitely provincial little villages have raised her. But now, a real city with a pristine view of the ocean awaits.

The amorous gains of Belmira contrast mightily with those of her sister Helena (Marisa Lopes), who once had Duarte in her loving grasp, only to see the passion melt away thanks to the vindictive hands of Belmira. Helena lives in a constant state of longing, cursed to live a life of what could have been. She is the owner of a broken heart, where love only exists as a conceptual fantasy.

As fates seem to have settled in for eternity, everything in this world is turned upside down once a mysterious man is brought to shore by Señor Costa (Sergio Davila) and Duarte.

The charming, curious man who’s fished from the river is named Moises (Ricardo C.) and he immediately becomes smitten with Helena. He is also being welcomed as a guest of honor for Belmira’s wedding; but for some reason, hee can only stay for three days until he is returned to a life of solitude. Might he be able to stay longer — forever perhaps?

The storytelling of such a rich narrative steeped in Brazilian folklore is perhaps the production’s best attribute. There is complexity when it comes to how each of the two young women fit into the world. For their part, and to the credit of the playwright, the men are not simply looked at as one-dimensional saviors or villains. This allows a richness for all characters to breathe with purpose.

As is often the case at City Lights, George Psarras is a wizard of all-encompassing soundscapes, easily befuddling the audience into thinking brutal and violent Amazon rain was actually pelting Ron Gasparinetti’s rustic set design. Spense Matubang’s lighting does much of the heavy lifting when it comes to setting the moods and tones, burnt splashes of color that give the entire world a kind of orange hue. And Kailyn Erb’s dramaturgically-decadent costumes accentuate the warmth and simplicity of folks who can be considered salt of the earth, living firmly in scintillating Brazilian folklore.

The play’s conclusion, which reveals the magical realism head-on, crackles with urgency. Zepeda, who gives her Belmira a playful annoyance throughout as she attempts to initiate her character’s endgame, enters a critical devastation here. Lopes provides a delicious foil for her, imbuing each of her calculated actions with rich, philosophical ruminations that steadily reveal her heartbreak.

The two characters often reminded me of the soul-crushing Angustias and her unwieldy sister Adela in Federico Garcia Lorca’s “The House of Bernarda Alba,” two women whose blind ambitions ultimately wreck each other during an oppressive period of mourning overseen by the domineering titular mother. Yet in this play, there is only an anti-Bernarda, in the character of Señora Costa, interpreted with delight by Carolina Perez, who provides a quintessential mother’s heart to these young women in crisis.

Much of the play’s spine is the Brazilian folklore the story accentuates. Embracing the plight of the Amazon pink river dolphins, the “boto,” touches on the loneliness that characters work with and push against. Yet the hearts of these women, much like the denizens who populate the mysteries of the Amazon, yearn for more.

David John Chávez is chair of the American Theatre Critics Association and a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (‘22-‘23). Twitter/Mastodon: @davidjchavez.

‘THE RIVER BRIDE’

By Marisela Treviño Orta, presented by City Lights Theater Company

Through: June 11

Where: City Lights Theater, 529 S. Second St., San Jose

Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission

Health & safety: Masks optional, but recommended

Tickets: $20-$51; cltc.org