Su Teatro’s “Wolf at the Door” a grim, gratifying fable
It was the evening of last weekend’s solar eclipse and a full moon hung above the set of “Wolf at the Door,” at Su Teatro Arts and Culture Center.
Onstage, in a modest hacienda, two women prepare for the arrival of a baby. It is a chilly night in 1800s Mexico. Between her intermittent moans, a pregnant Isadora ( Paola Miranda) paces the room, hoping to ease her contractions. Her Rocio (Magally Luna), once her nanny and now her housekeeper, makes preparations. The two talk with hope about the baby and Isadora’s family’s impending visit. They speak less enthusiastically about Isadora’s husband, Séptimo (Camilo Luera). He hits his wife, even when she is pregnant. When the baby arrives early and stillborn, the fault for the heartbreak is his.
While Isadora is still holding the swaddled infant, Séptimo comes through the door and proves just what kind of man he is. When Rocio tells him the child was a boy, he quips at Isadora, “At least you got that right.” Then adds with disgust, “bury it.”
Mar isela Treviño Or ta’s drama is part of the Texas-born playwright’s folklore- inspired cycle. ( The Arvada Center produced “The River Bride” last season. The author is working on “Alcira,” set in San Francisco.) Directed by Micaela Garcia de Benavidez, this well-performed production launches Su Teatro’s new season.
“Wolf at the Door” takes on domestic violence and complicity, as well as wounded yet volatile masculinity. Adult in its concerns, the play nevertheless captivates with its fairytale touches. What does it mean that the arrival of a naked, pregnant woman with feral qualities coincides with the baby’s death?
Natalie Fuentes portrays Yolot, the otherworldly creature who has taken a human form. The howls of her lupine brothers standing on a hill beyond the farmhouse can be heard once she arrives at the homestead. She reveals her otherworldly identity and her purpose to Isadora slowly.
Séptimo hungered for a son and sees in the stranger’s pregnancy an opportunity. He will
have her baby one way or the other, and Isadora’s family will be none the wiser. His methods are both cruel and haphazard. First, he tries to shame Yolot into giving up her baby. Then he tries to coax her with kindness. Then falling back on cruelty, he shackles her. The longer Yolot’s mission takes, the more perilous it becomes for her.
At first, Isadora wanly protests Séptimo’s actions. She has never really stood up to him. But something has shifted in her since the death of the baby. “No. No, I won’t let you take her baby,” she says. “Things are going to change around here.”
She will try to persuade him to be the man she once believed him to be. (A subplot finds the supportive Rocio reckoning with a past betrayal.) Isadora and Séptimo’s conversation in the barn is a rich dance of coaxing. It replays their early courtship but also hints at Isadora’s shif ting self- awareness. Their power dynamics are changing, even if Séptimo doesn’t see it.
Although the play leans into fable — especially in its final moments — it is not particularly supernatural in its execution. There could have been puppets and other bells and whistles. And while that might have been delightful, it isn’t necessary. The director and her cast keep the action nuanced, authentically expressing the play’s real-world traumas.
For the briefest of moments, actor Camilo Luera allows his character a reprieve from his villainy. Even so, when Séptimo recounts the story of his upbringing as the unwanted son of a once generous father, it is not likely to elicit sympathy so much as confirm how early childhood trauma can create an unrepentant monster. His comeuppance, both amusing and wise, is a work of poetic genius and even compassion.