With four men in female roles and a casket in a vigil, the Hispanic International Theatre Festival introduced its 18th season to a joyful audience that packed its home base, Coral Gables' Teatro Avante.

Atra Bilis (Black Bile), a presentation by Spain's Producciones Micomicón, was the first of 11 plays from seven countries that will be shown in four South Florida cities during the 16-day celebration (the Gables, Miami, Homestead and Fort Lauderdale). It was an auspicious beginning for the locally born-and-bred festival that continues to gain recognition for its quality and variety. (The festival then travels to Los Angeles and Chicago, sponsored by the latter city's prestigious Goodman Theatre.)

Despite the first play's gloomy setting -- candles by a black casket, a dark, church-like home, three old women in mourning -- Laura Ripoll's Atra Bilis has that kind of rare writing that will make you laugh while wondering if it's proper to do so. There are serious issues being aired by the three sisters at the vigil for Nazaria's husband, the least of which is adultery, but also greed, jealousy and murder. But the acting by the three men, (a fourth, who plays the maid, joins the threesome during the last half), the crisp and cutting dialogue and a plot that pulls at several emotions, made Atra Bilis a talk-about opener.

Two plays based on the epitome of Spanishness, Cervantes and his characters Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, followed.

The first, El vuelo del Quijote (The Flight of Don Quixote) by Raquel Carrió and Lilliam Vega was Teatro Avante's offering for the festival. Directed by Vega, the beautifully staged farce takes us on an imaginary flight of Don Alonso (Jorge Hernández), who feels revived at the thought of engaging in Quixote's old battles again. The creative staging by Armando Tejuca -- as Quixote fights windmills and evil contenders -- and fine acting by Hernández, Gerardo Riverón (in multiple roles) and, especially, Jacqueline Briceño, as Sancho and the Housekeeper -- compensated for the slight pretentiousness of the play.

The second of the Cervantes-inspired plays, and the third of the festival, was Japan's Sancho Panza, presented by Lasenkan Theatre of Nishinomiya. Written by Yoko Tawada and directed by Saburo Shimada, an appealing figure who provided sound effects and direction right on stage, this Sancho had little to remind us of the obedient manservant of the Spanish novel. In nine vignettes inspired by well-known works of art, two women challenge the norms of society, be they sexual, religious or physical. One, the shorter one, is Sancho, the leader, which by itself runs contrary to the book. But nothing in this Sancho is as expected. Spanish, German and Japanese, expressed in the musical tone of Japanese theater, guided the mostly abstract dialogue. Extremely hard to follow, the play was nevertheless mesmerizing. The show was too long and the supertitles rarely seemed to match what was happening. However, the imaginative movements, musicality and imaginative production offered the kind of variety you expect at a festival and a rarity you won't find anywhere else.

So far so good for theater in South Florida.

The Miami Herald
Junio 2003