SHADOW OF A MAN
Latino Chicago Theater Company
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Cherrie Moraga’s melodramatic play Shadow of a Man, being staged at the Latino Chicago Theater Company, isn’t about the collapse itself but about the wreckage such a collapse causes in one family. Manuel Rodriguez is so wrapped up in his memories of his compadre Conrado that he can’t appreciate the family he has attained as a sort of trade-off. He mourns the loss of both Conrado and his youth while his children grow up unnoticed around him and his wife shoulders the blame for destroying the perfect friendship. To top things off, we learn at the start of the play that Manuel’s son is rejecting both his heritage and Manuel himself by marrying a “gringa,” which means Manuel is losing his only surrogate for Conrado, and once again because of a woman’s interference.
The play itself moves with the slow-footedness of a soap opera, and Carmen Aguilar’s direction does very little to center this scattered drama about a dysfunctional family. Then again, there doesn’t seem to be much of a center to it. At first the script concentrates on Manuel’s preteen daughter Lupe and her preoccupation with Catholic theology; her brother’s betrayal and her father’s palpable disinterest in his family are seen through her eyes. Eventually, however, the play abandons her perspective in favor of a firsthand view of her parents’ strained relationship. There’s Manuel’s painful memories of a better life with his buddy, and the secret attraction his wife feels for Conrado. All of this is accompanied by a heavy-handed lighting design. Whenever something important is about to be said, the lights dim and a spot comes up on the character with the wisdom to dole out or the secret to tell. From time to time there’s also the blurry shadow of a man against the back wall of the stage–a cloying reminder of the show’s title.
