"On a moonlit July night in
Barstow, California, strange, seductive things can happen, especially if you
talk to the moon, which is portrayed as an aging, violin-playing dandy in a
Panama hat and white suit.
Don't expect any literal answers
from REFERENCES TO SALVADOR DALI MAKE ME HOT, José Rivera's surreal romance in
which love, lust and longing mix it up, bewitching a twenty-seven year-old housewife
awaiting the return of her soldier-husband from overseas.
Rivera's intriguing
fantasy...celebrates the confusion that grows out of trying to understand not
only the one you love but yourself as well. It is a meditation on the
impossible, but told in a provocative manner by Rivera, a writer whose language
manages to be poetic and earthy at the same time."
Michael Kuchwara, Associated
Press
"...marvelous and
satisfying...
In DALI, Rivera...imagines
Gabriela's dream world as rigorously as he does her real world, striking a
balance between the two with the affecting power of his language.
...a double-sided dream of
intelligence and wit."
Gordon Cox, Newsday
"The writing fluctuates
between faintly surreal poetry and wryly pointed prose, cocky fantasy and
bittersweet earthiness. Rivera manages the latter adroitly, but even the former
is not without its moments...a genuine comedy-drama that rises above the
specific into the ecumenical.
Particularly praiseworthy is the evenhandedness with which Rivera articulates
the husband's and the wife's dilemmas, and his ability to anchor Benito and
Gabriela in both their Hispanic roots and their ultimate universality. Their
language is credibly down-to-earth, but with flights of a more literary wit and
lyricism that, after the initial stages, avoid striking false notes."
John Simon, New York
originally produced at South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa CA
4 M, 2 F
I S B N: 0-88145-200-9
$9.95
this play is also available in Reference To Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot And Other Plays