Boleros for the Disenchanted

Both a lively Spanish dance and its music, the bolero, came to Puerto Rico influenced by African rhythms and took on a Latin-American beat and romanticism to become distinctive. Boleros for the Disenchanted dramatizes, like that music, a soulful as well as sensual experience of love interchanged. Whereas dancers in Spain stay apart, they dance bolero together in Puerto Rico, just as lovers begin and end up in Jose Rivera's play.

It's a pity that for all the Act One references to Puerto Rico, beyond certain slight historical and political ones, the locale makes no distinctive contribution to the action. Flowery scenery under blue sky brightly sunlit at the start (1953) is, to be sure, colorful and attractive. So are the clothes worn by the principals. But they're not all that different from same in countries throughout the Caribbean.

Despite Don Fermin's condemnation (via a close-to-violent Damian Buzzerio) of exploitation from the North and a brief favorable reference to independence, he is as tied to the land as he is to Dona Milla (compelling, sensuous Marina Re). She forgives his infidelities and occasional blows out of love and resignation to macho ways. They share grief over their son who left for the States, never to return, and hope to see daughter Flora (spirited Rainbow Dickerson) married to stable, relatively prosperous Manuelo.

In their second year of "proper" engagement, Flora learns of Manuelo's notorious philandering. Despite David Perez-Ribada's passionate (and comic) "reasoning" as Manuelo -- that he only meets the needs of his manhood while protecting her virtue, Flora turns him down.

In a dramatic foreshadowing, the impressive Perez-Ribada then doubles as a priest trying to calm her. Flora goes to visit her "modern" cousin Petra (vivacious Stacie Lents). Soon Eusebio, a National Guardsman, keeps "missing" a bus to have a beer and play a juke box bolero in the place he knows he'll meet Flora. He wins her trust and love. Since he seems (as confidently portrayed by Carlos Alberto Valencia) to be a man who's going somewhere, Flora's parents approve. Yet they're quick to curse the newlyweds when Eusebio announces he'll take her North, to opportunity.

In a dismal, shabby studio near one of their nine children's army base in Alabama, 1992, a legless Eusebio is near despair, tended by weary Flora. (Being played by Buzzerio and Re signals parallels between the couple and Flora's parents.) Attracting prejudice, finding only menial work, following unprofitable old cultural patterns, moving with their military progeny have taken their toll. When, as a parish volunteer, Flora gives marriage counseling, she points out how romance can interfere with common sense. To enthusiastic young Monica (Lents) and her affable soldier-fiance Oskar (Valencia), Flora urges patience: "Married life is no piece of cake."