Goodman's 'Destiny of Desire' lovingly sends up Latin American telenovelas
The 2015 comedy is essentially a loving sendup of telenovelas, the globally popular TV cousins to American daytime soaps. Rather than disdaining this form of entertainment, Zacarias shows how telenovelas carry on ancient theatrical storytelling traditions to comment on the problems and inequities of modern society. Thus, #8220;Destiny of Desire#8221; is full of pointed commentary with lots of wicked humor for the here and now.
Zacarias structures the story as a play within a play staged in a supposedly abandoned Chicago theater. This device allows for the audience to be in on theatrical basics like full-view scene changes, while also getting sucked into the drama of the passion-overloaded telenovela, where pulpy plot twists come on fast and don't let up.
The drama kicks off in the fictional Mexican town of Bellarica. Vain, materialistic Fabiola (Ruth Livier), wife to the powerful casino mogul Armando Castillo (Cástulo Guerra), gives birth to a sickly daughter at the same time that poor farmers Ernesto and Hortencia Del Rio (Mauricio Mendoza and Elisa Bocanegra) give birth to a healthy girl. So Fabiola uses her clout and threats to urge the corrupt doctor Jorge Ramiro Mendoza (Ricardo Gutierrez) and the disapproving nun Sister Sonia (Evelina Fernández) to exchange the babies.
The action then jumps ahead nearly two decades to show the exaggerated consequences for both families. Those baby girls have grown into the wealthy Pilar Esperanza Castillo (Esperanza America) and the poor Victoria Maria del Rio (Ella Saldana North). And, of course, they end up crossing paths. Further complications ensue involving the handsome prodigal son Sebastian Jose (Eduardo Enrikez) and Jorge's moralistic grown doctor son, Diego Mendoza (Fidel Gomez).
Zacarias crams in more shocking events #8212; accidental shootings, clandestine affairs, rage-filled murder, deceitful blackmail, abusive homophobia and even unwitting incest. So director José Luis Valenzuela and his ensemble have a grand time finding a balance between high-drama and camp comedy.
Just when the melodrama begins to tip toward the ridiculous, Zacarias punctuates the action with U.S. facts and figures. Hearing disturbing statistics regarding guns, medical mix-ups and more emphasize that the exaggerated onstage antics might not be too far-fetched.
Where #8220;Destiny of Desire#8221; might try an audience's patience is in its self-aware whimsy. Far too often the actors' scene changes involve unnecessary choreographed flourishes. In addition, the company's well-done Spanish song interludes, featuring onstage piano accompaniment by composer Rosino Serrano, sometimes plod on too long.
#8220;Destiny of Desire#8221; is filled with glamorously tacky costumes by designer Julie Weiss and dramatic color-saturated lighting by designer Pablo Santiago. Yet sometimes more flash would have been nice in Francois-Pierre Couture's fabric-filled set design, and there were opening-night microphone issues involving John Zalewski's sound design.
It's likely that Zacarias wrote #8220;Destiny of Desire#8221; to be a crash course for American audiences to tap into the global allure of telenovelas. And as a silly distillation of a Latin American entertainment mainstay, #8220;Destiny of Desire#8221; assuredly scores.
“Destiny of Desire”
★ ★ ★
<b>Location:</b> Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, (312) 443-3800 or <a href="http://goodmantheatre.org">goodmantheatre.org</a>
<b>Showtimes:</b> 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and April 4; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Thursday (no matinee April 13); 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday (no matinee March 25); 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday (no matinee April 9 or 16); through April 16
<b>Tickets:</b> $20-$75
<b>Running time:</b> About two hours, 30 minutes with intermission
<b>Parking:</b> Area pay garages and limited metered parking
<b>Rating:</b> For teens and older: some humorous sexual situations, brief violence and language