ROOSTERS Latino Chicago
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OK, the symbolism isn’t painstakingly subtle, and the cockfighting Morales family is somewhat less emotionally complex than the Tyrones in Long Day’s Journey Into Night. However rough cut, though, Roosters is still a strange and amusing play.
The best thing about Roosters is that it’s written by a woman. What I mean is, you get to see macho explored from a feminine point of view. And the best thing about that is that Milcha Sanchez-Scott is a fairly perceptive writer. Because it would be all too easy, even common, to dramatize a strident, feminist condemnation of a pathetically silly, cruel, macho blood sport. Fighting chickens, indeed! If they were real men, they’d strap razor blades on their erections and have at each other. (Kids, don’t try this at home.) But Sanchez-Scott discards attitude in favor of further investigation, and she allows the audience the right to come to their own conclusions.
Mary McAuliffe’s direction is hit and miss. She picks up deftly on Sanchez-Scott’s feminine perspective, even going so far as to cast women as the roosters. But McAuliffe’s staging is so uncertain that the cast often appears at a total loss as to where to go or what to do with their hands. Nor is there much of an ensemble. Different performers pursue different interpretations, which may or may not have merit in their own right, and only confuse the big picture.
