cover photo by Pat Kirk
"The mercurial qualities of
love, dreams, and beauty provide the gently pulsating thrust of
Edwin Sánchez's new play ICARUS...
New plays are often either hard
and edgy or soft and sappy. ICARUS is the rare creation that is
allowed to be both. Unabashedly sweet, often lyrical and even
incisive, Sánchez's play takes a group of oddball
characters--all searching, all damaged--and lets them do quietly
wonderful things for one another....
Like the Greek myth from which the
play takes its name, ICARUS is about super-charged dreamers whose
wax wings melt when they fly too close to the sun....
ICARUS plays out like an inverted
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST fairy tale, though there's no magic to whip
up a happy ending. But there are moments of grace that fill the
play's one hundred minutes when the characters are momentarily
released from their own traumas and attempt to help one another
in unassuming but meaningful ways....
...in an enchanted setting,
dreamers almost win, lovers nearly find happiness, and beauty
kisses those who most deserve its fleeting glory. Reality
ultimately kills the fairy tale, but nothing can stem the
heartfelt charm and warmth that radiates from ICARUS."
Chad Jones, Oakland Tribune
"Like two battle-weary
soldiers, Altagracia and Primitivo plod toward the beach.
Primitivo, a boy whose contorted body languishes in a wheelchair,
is nudged forward. His sister, half-dragging the chair, is marked
by a maroon-colored gnarl that runs across her forehead and down
the side of her face.
Just then, Primitivo, as cranky as
a sleep-deprived two-year-old, begins to cry.
The disquieting scene that opens
Edwin Sánchez's ICARUS is enough to make anyone uneasy. But what
initially seems like some postmodern cross between Beach
Blanket Bingo and Freaks, Tod Browning's 1932 cult
film, methodically unfolds into a thing of profound beauty.
And that's the point of ICARUS:
Beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder. It's something
that runs deeper than the roots of an oak tree, down to some
inner sanctuary that provides safety even in the harshest
conditions. Sánchez's lyrical,often soaring portait of dreamers
is one of the sweetest, most affirming plays to come through the
Bay Area in the last two years....
ICARUS is propelled by Sánchez's
winning, playful script. His moving text is laden with the
nuggets of information...that go into building a richly etched
picture. A consummate story-teller, Sánchez also is careful to
leave enough blank spaces on his canvas for the audience to fill
in from their own imaginations...."
Mark de la Viña, San Jose Mercury News
originally produced by San Jose Repertory Theater, CA
3 M, 2 F
I S B N: 0-88145-155-X, $8.95