LOVERS AND KEEPERS
“At first you were incredibly stupid,” he answers. “but then you got smarter and sweeter.”
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These two may not always have liked each other, but they are each other’s mundane destiny; they are content to stay together because they’ve maneuvered through the mine fields to a safe place. But there’s a sad lining to their ordinary nest and a reservoir of dissatisfaction. While it was clearly the playwright’s intention to combine sweetness and sadness in this portrayal of love as redemption and of love among the common folk, the material is ultimately disappointing.
The final story is a poignant peek at an elderly couple deep into dependence and accommodation. As Rose, Beka Calkins, who is young, stole the show–not by senior-stereotype mugging, but by combining the subtle physical frustrations and the small victories over the aging process that all old people must experience. One particular scene, when she sings to her husband about the wonders of chicken soup (by implication, a near aphrodisiac), serves as a terrific bookend to the angst-filled discourse on vegetables that Fred gives at the beginning of the trilogy. The soup business, however, is strikingly similar in tone to “Sopita de Pichon,” an old Cuban folk song with which Fornes is no doubt familiar.
