Past Reviews

Regional Reviews: Albuquerque/Santa Fe

Regional Reviews

The Sad Room Explores Addiction and Loss
Siembra, Latino Theatre Festival

Also see Rob's review of The 39 Steps


Lorenza Marcais
The Sad Room is a powerful play that takes an intimate look at addiction, death, loss, and recovery. Written by Patricia Crespin, who also plays the lead role of Magdalena, the action opens with Maya (a roaring Diana Padilla) trying to drag her best friend Magdalena out of her five-year depression. Magdalene closed herself off from the world after her teenage daughter Santana died from a heroin overdose. Now she sits in her living room, closes the windows and spends her days on the couch, eating junk food and smoking weed.

Maya herself is burdened with nearly insurmountable problems. She is coming out of the latest in a string of abusive relationships that she tolerates because an abusive man is better than no man. To calm herself, she pops Ambien washed down with miniature vodkas. All the while, she is determined to get her acting career off the ground, but time is running out.

The drama intensifies when the ghost of Santana (Alex Angles) appears to confront Magdalena. Santana insists that she cannot move on in the afterlife because Magdalena won't let go. Magdalena admits she's hanging on to her grief over Santana. The memories of her daughter are all she has in life.

Santana is a furious ghost. She blames both her mother and Maya, who has been like an aunt, for creating an environment of drug and alcohol abuse. "You taught me to turn to drugs," she spits at her mom. Magdalena and Maya bring in a spirit woman (Lorenza Marcais) to chase away Santana's ghost, but the attempt just intensifies Santana's rage. The play delves into the causes and pressures of drug addiction. Santana was raised around casual drug and alcohol use, so when she is prompted to try heroin by her peers, she had little defense.

Everyone in the cast does a wonderful job, especially Padilla, who is an absolute force of nature as Maya. The material is strong, but the play could use some tightening. There are redundancies that could be edited out, and there is room for further delving into the causes and lifestyle of addiction. While we see Santana's struggle with withdrawal, we don't get a clear picture of what drags her back into that hellish world once her withdrawal symptoms subside. Additional workshopping would probably make this compelling story even more powerful.

This is the ninth and final production from Siembra, a Latino Theatre Festival that began last September. The Sad Room is a worthy finish to a solid series of relatively new Latino plays. Ten different theatre companies were involved in the festival, and all the plays were performed at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC). I attended five of the nine productions. The plays varied in quality and style, but each one I attended was an evening well spent. When I attended The Sad Room, I was delighted to hear the executive director of the NHCC, Rebecca Avitia, announce that Siembra will become an annual festival of Latino theatre here in Albuquerque. Bravo.

The Sad Room by Patricia Crespin will run through May 17, 2015, at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. Performances are at 7:30 Thursday through Saturday, and at 2:00 on Sunday. Tickets are $18, with a $3 discount for seniors and students. For more information or to reserve tickets, call the NHCC at 246-2262, or go to nationalhispaniccenter.org.


Photo: Courtesy Wize Latina Productions

--Rob Spiegel