The Siege of Numantia - A City Turns To Dust

The Siege of Numantia Directed by Cora Cardona.  Cast: Ignacio Lujan,
Sixto Orellana, Omar Padilla, Carlos Ayala, Sorany Gutiérrez, Leticia Alaniz, Marbella Barreto,
Enrique Arellano, Martin Mejía, Ninoshka Martinez, Nichole Sanchez 

A city has turned to dust out of the ashes of its people who called themselves Numantinos.  The blood of life ran like a river of death thru every corner and at every turn of the streets of the Iberian Peninsula; where the Celtiberian people had made their oppidum or fortified large settlement in the final centuries BC.  The citizens of Numancia had taken their own lives in order to prevent a brutal death at the hands of the Romans who had begun conquering Europe.  Terror wreaked loud and they feared for their beloved city.  Archeologically, Numancia’s bloodshed occurred in what is now north-central Spain.  

Leticia Alaniz in The Siege of Numantia
Directed by Cora Cardona
Teatro Dallas

Houses no longer had the sound of children’s laughter, nor the sweet smell of bread baking.  The people obeyed the orders of their leader Teógenes, whom would not allow their terrible fate to plunder their dignity.  They were to resist the Romans by their own hands with the blessings of their god Jupiter.  Thousands of logs were piled high, and they built a large fire in the middle of the city in its central plaza.  One by one, the Numantinos plunged themselves to their final breath before the forced entry of the Romans who were led by Scipión the consul, and his consort Jugurtha.  The Numantinos had deliberately crushed Scipión’s chances of a final victory for the Romans and his regal power was shadowed by shame.  

Enrique Arellano, Ignacio Lujan
Sixto Orellana in The Siege of Numantia
Photo Leticia Alaniz © 2016

The mission of the Romans was to capture Numancia, the ancient rich city of Hispaniola for the Roman empire.  But for sixteen years, the strong Numantinos resisted the war and their rebellion was powerful; they were few but fierce. 

Scipión had a strong iron army  that outnumbered the citizens of Numancia who were warriors and firm survivors.  With that in mind, Scipión knew that if he was to capture Numancia he had to build an outer wall around the city and isolate its citizens from any relief or provisions.  Therefore, the only way to capture the city was by starvation.  A nearby swamp was dammed and created a lake between the city walls and the outer wall that was built by Scipión’s army.  Seven towers were built interspersed to keep a watchful eye and prevent any escape from the desperate and starving people.  Sharp arrows were shot at anyone without mercy.

Omar Padilla & Sorany Gutiérrez in
The Siege of Numantia
Photo Leticia Alaniz © 2016

The gentle river Duero which surrounded the city was their only source of drinking water.  Greedily, Scipión captured it’s life giving flow and strung a large cable across with blades to prevent both boats and swimmers from leaving or entering the city.  The blockade of the river and the isolation caused death by starvation, but for the Numantinos it was preferable to starve rather than be captured by the Romans whom would brutally kill their men and enslave their women and children.

Teógenes, wishing for a peaceful outcome for his people, sent ambassadors to speak to Scipión and asked for their liberty and peace in return for a complete surrender.  But the bloodthirsty Scipión refused and offered Teógenes the flag of death.  Still, the city refused to surrender.  Starvation and dead bodies were the landscape, and cannibalism ensued.  The suicide of the remaining citizens in the fire was the dignified living death that never perished their memory.  Bravery was the face of the Numantinos and they overcame the ostentatious hand of the enemy.

Marbella Barreto as Mother Earth in
The Siege of Numantia
Photo Leticia Alaniz © 2016

The story of the Numantinos and the burning of their city was pinned by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in 1582 with his tragedy titled: El Cerco de Numancia/ The Siege of Numantia.  Cervantes enveloped the tragedy in descriptive dialogue and rhyme tercets, redondillas and octaves and it contains epic elements that describe allegorical figures and Spain as the Madre Tierra or Mother Earth.  Famine, domestic misery, rage, patriotism, love, and finally mass suicide play a key role in the tragic denouement.  

Leticia Alaniz, Carlos Ayala & Nichole Sánchez in
The Siege of Numantia Directed by Cora Cardona
Teatro Dallas

Artistic director Cora Cardona has brought to Teatro Dallas one of the best plays of the year by adapting a staging of the classical work that Cervantes gifted the world.  Cardona’s adaptation is an intricate weaving of an apocalyptic ambiance that reflects on past wars as well as current wars in which destruction, hunger, and sickness are the inevitable outcome.  Cardona’s vision shed light and political criticism on the condemnation of war by highlighting projections of the destruction of Syria, a current tragedy shaking the world that proves that the conquest of nations become the theater for tragedy and military, political and economic advancement.  It is the sacking of the weak in their bleak misery for the glory of the powerful.  

In some of the most horrific scenes of Cardona’s adaptation, the women bore arms with the men and cried for their slain.  Others slew their children with their own hands and threw them into the burning flames, considering death preferable to captivity.  Entire families set fire to their houses and cut their own throats.  They would not succumb to the Roman rule of making a desert of death and call it peace.  Immolation was the answer to combat slavery. 

Cardona mastered a visual staging of an allegorical Spain as a bleeding Mother Earth weeping for the pain and suffering caused upon her land and rivers and the death of her children in which blood played a central role. Celtiberian resistance to Rome was fierce, but Numancia had defied the Romans even if it was left to ashes.  

Cora Cardona is a master of the theater and she proved once again that her vision can be brought to life through the careful selection of an ensemble cast that can give voice to the tragedy of The Siege of Numancia.  It's a privilege to be a working actor and an honor to have had the opportunity to work once again on the stage of Teatro Dallas under the direction of Cora Cardona.  

The Siege Of Numantia Cast

Omar Padilla

Ignacio Lujan

Sixto Orellana

Sorany Gutiérrez

Marbella Barreto

Leticia Alaniz

Carlos Ayala

Enrique Arellano

Ninoshka Martínez

Martin Mejía

Nichole Sánchez

Fernando Lara

Omar Padilla in The Siege of Numantia
Directed by Cora Cardona
Photo Leticia Alaniz © 2016

Written by Leticia Alaniz © 2016

Arístides Vargas - Feather and The Tempest

Argentinean Playwright Arístides Vargas

The dramatic genius of playwright Arístides Vargas has a long history that began in Argentina where he was born.  He was raised in Mendoza and studied Theater at Cuyo University.  In 1975, when he was only 20, political turmoil during the de facto government or the Revolución Argentina, forced the young playwright to flee his beloved country and seek exile in Ecuador.  A violent breach between right-wing and left-wing Peronism led to years of instability which culminated with the coup d’état of 1976.  The military government violated many human rights and imposed the “ideological war” doctrine which focused on eliminating the social base and assassinating many students, intellectuals, and labor organizers.  This fact marked Vargas’ dramaturgical work.  

- I grew up in a very unconventional way, I was quite defective with two heads and two memories, which placed me in many places.  I’m a playwright that writes about life’s traumas.    

Omar Padilla & Juliana Thompson in
Feather and The Tempest by Arístedes Vargas
Photo © Leticia Alaniz

Early in his career, he was admired as the poet of the stage.  He has expressed that theater came to him by accident.  One day when he was only 15, he went with a friend to a theater workshop.  He was fascinated by what he saw and decided right then that theater would be his life.  Fully immersed either writing for the stage, acting or directing, he was alerted by a friend that the military was on their way to the theater to arrest intellectuals, which also meant actors and directors.  He managed to escape, but many of his friends were arrested.  He was left with no other choice than to leave the country.  With only five dollars in his pocket, he fled to Ecuador, began to write his Latin-American story and formed a theatrical group called Malayerba.  Today, Malayerba is considered one of the most important and representative theater companies in Latin America.    

Omar Padilla & Jake Bowman in
Feather and The Tempest by Arístides Vargas
Photo © Leticia Alaniz

J.R. Bradford & Karla González in
Feather and The Tempest by Arístides Vargas
Photo © Leticia Alaniz

Aristides Vargas writes about lost childhoods, extraordinary situations, and the relationship of people.  His theater is contemporary and it voices the reality of current generations.  Recurrent themes in his plays are the memory, the need of reconstruction thru memory, the act of exile, migration, and death.  His writing reflects a reality that can only be expressed thru theater, setting the stage for the cures of the diseases that plague dictatorial governments that he's all too familiar with.  

In Feather and The Tempest, Vargas touches the hearts of audiences in a poetic and provocative play that reflects on the societies that the youth of today will inherit.  It begins with a story of a youth named Feather who was born in a hostile world, growing in the streets like a ship adrift, like a feather in the storm, shaken and agitated by the ever-changing harshness of life.  He is marginalized, exposed to all kinds of dangers, forced to sell out, to satisfy hunger without substantiality, to resign, and yet against all storms, choose the self-affirmation and development of their own individuality, struggling to survive and continue, recycling the remnants of the storm.  “Feather” offers a critique of the political, religious and educational institutions proposed by our current societies.  Feather is also a kind of hermaphrodite, a metaphor for the idealist, the subject hopeful that fails to progress, to express, to belong, or be welcomed by a member of society.

Feather is an entity on a white canvas, in other words with no real form, yet it forms itself as a person, depending on what

Grisel Cambiasso in Feather and The Tempest
by Aristídes Vargas
Photo © Leticia Alaniz

happens out in the streets of the real world.  In a way, we all go thru that, we become what life experiences come at us.  Feather speaks of our contemporary times, what we are living now.  It's a debacle of corruption, created by a few yet paid for by many.  It's a play that speaks to the youth of today about how the political, economic and social horrors influence students.

Students are survivors and they learn how to breathe right in the heart of a tempest.. (Text from Feather and The Tempest).  

Teatro Dallas presents Aristides Vargas’ Feather and The Tempest

April 8th thru May 1st

Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm

Sundays at 3pm 

Directed by Cora Cardona 

Starring:

J.R. Bradford, Karla González, Omar Padilla, Ninoshka Martínez, Jake Bowman, Armando Monsivais, Grisel Cambiasso, Izzy Mayfield, Juliana Thompson and Fernando Lara

Tickets & Info:

214-689-6492

www.teatrodallas.org 

Juliana Thompson & Ninoshka Martínez in
Feather and The Tempest by Arístides Vargas
Photo © Leticia Alaniz

The Circus That Came From Mars by Alfredo Cardona Peña

The Circus That Came From Mars
by Alfredo Cardona Peña
Photograph by Leticia Alaniz ©2015

Behold, the greatest and most amazing circus that ever visited planet earth is The Circus That Came From Mars!  Experience unimaginable family fun with a fantastic play written by Costa Rican playwright and poet, Alfredo Cardona Peña.  It's a magical, moving, and visual poetic production written for children and adults.  

The story begins with the long journey of the greatest circus to visit planet Earth from Mars.  There are many exiting and rare circus acts, awe inspiring feats of daring and spectacles of wonder never before seen on earth.  The acts are performed by martians and mythical, mysterious creatures.   But a very special and legendary creature, 50 meters tall, is Argos the Giant, (cleverly played by Sixto Orellana) who is known throughout the universe for his one hundred eyes and for his ability to guess the thoughts and wishes of children.  His hope on his visit to Earth is to bring magic and joy to all the children.

Meanwhile on Earth, in a humble home lives a little boy named Tomasito (played by Anthony Bedolla), whom lives with his younger sister, Carmelita (Nicole Sánchez) whom is blind.  Tomasito, hears about the circus coming to Earth and is eager to go see it.  The circus caused such a stir that all the schools were closed in the  frenzy of excitement.  

The circus was sent by a commission of sages, or wise men in appreciation to Earth for their first expedition to the friendly planet.  The amazing circus was too big and heavy and could not land so in order to enter its gigantic tent all the children had to be lifted up in a hot air ballon up to 2000 feet high. 

Inside the giant tent, there was a delicious and giant waterfall of chocolate and strawberry ice-cream for all the children to eat their fill.  Another act is the amazing dragon with a long tail that can dance and spew stars from its mouth instead of fire.  And if your eyes haven’t seen enough, out comes an eagle with three heads and dwarfed elephants that march synchronized to music!  Among other acts are Robert the illusionist (played by Robert Moreno) and a his little assistant beautifully played by Juliana Thompson.    

The Circus That Came From Mars
Izzy May
Photograph by Leticia Alaniz ©2015

The acts are so extraordinary but the most sensational act is Argos the Giant.  When the giant makes his spectacular entrance all is dark expect for one hundred beams of light that illuminate the stage coming from the hundred eyes of Argos like stars from the sky.  But Argos has only one goal, and since he is a gentle, kind, and loving giant, he wants to do good on planet earth.  He waits for all the children at the circus to send him their wishes and thoughts.  With his magical powers he comes across the most noble thought of them all.  It was Tomacito’s thought that moves him the most.  His only wish is for his little blind sister Carmelita to be able to see.

Three Headed Eagle
The Circus That Came From Mars
Costume Design by Israel Shalkour
Photograph by Leticia Alaniz ©2015

Carmelita, whom is at home with her mother (played by Marbella Barreto) feels a strange sensation come over her.  Something magical has happened.  She can finally see!  Carmelita begs to be taken to the circus and they go up to the gigantic tent.  Carmelita sees the spectacle and magic with her own eyes when suddenly they hear a loud, thunderous sound from the tent.  The circus prepares to leave planet earth and as it starts its ascend, colorful fireworks and lights beam down below for all the the children and spectators to enjoy.  

On Earth, no one ever knew that Argos the giant went back to Mars with only 98 eyes.  With his noble heart, he gave up two of his eyes so that one child on Earth could have the gift of vision.  

Don’t miss this magical theatrical experience!  Theater is art and most of all, theater is culture for the entire family.  

The Circus That Came From Mars

Directed by: Cora Cardona

Written by: Alfredo Cardona Peña

Artists:

Sixto Orellana

Sorany Gutiérrez

Omar Padilla

Marbella Barreto

Anthony Bedolla

Juliana Thompson

Nicole Sánchez

Hollon Rojas

Izzy May

Robert Moreno

Show Dates: January 10 - February 1, 2015

All Performances at Teatro Dallas

1331 Record Crossing Rd., Dallas TX 75235

Tickets & Information: 214-689-6492

http://www.teatrodallas.org

Sponsored by:

OCA, Univision, TCA, TACA

The Maiden Of The Used Books by Arístides Vargas

Photograph by Leticia Alaniz © 2011
In this photo Marti Ethridge as the Maiden and Laura L. Watson

 Playwright Aristides Vargas brings to life love, deception and repression all driven by a dysfunctional family.  The head of the family is almost always the father, but in this family he is the perpetrator of direct assault to all of its members.  The well written play will entertain you, move you, and make you laugh at a family that mirrors society in all of its sarcasm.  

It is a thought-provoking and poetic piece about a young girl who is sold to a much older general.  Forced to live in the harsh and realistic world of military power and repression, the maiden, barely at the beginning of her adolescence, attempts to run away and is hit by a bus when her husband and commander attempts to engage in sexual intercourse with her.  While battling for her life in a hospital, she looks back over the events of her past only to realize she must make one of the most important decisions she has ever made.

The play explores with breathtaking imagery contemporary relationships of love and deception.  Director Cora Cardona of Teatro Dallas presents this masterful work in a unique and imaginative exploration.  The production stars J.P Cano, Lydia Enriquez, Laura L. Watson, Marti Ethridge, Edgar Estrada, Armando Monsivais and Sergio Rodriguez.

April 22- May 29 2011

Fridays and Saturdays at 8:15 pm

Sundays at 3:00 pm

All Performances at Teatro Dallas

http://www.teatrodallas.org/Home/New.html

or call 214-689-6492