Bogata's Buen Pastor (“Good Shepherd”) Prison was, at one time, a convent serving as a women's shelter, before decades of Colombian civil unrest transformed it into a crowded, neglected, ill-supervised facility for the confinement of female criminals, dissidents, and other disruptive misfits. Ah, but once a year, during the festival of Our Virgin of Mercy, the detainees are granted relief from their misery through participation in a well-funded, heavily promoted, in-house beauty contest??? Playgoers familiar with Jose Rivera's romantic affinity for glamour and squalor juxtaposed within a magic-realism universe will not be surprised by his attraction to this custom. Ostensibly, its goals are to promote communal solidarity, increase individual esteem, and present an image to the public of these social outcasts conforming to proper feminine decorum—shaking booty in skin-baring Vegas showgirl spangles and stilettos, winking and flirting like sorority girls during rush week. Theater audiences looking back at Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade (which depicts a theatrical presentation performed by the inmates of an insane asylum) may also recall that efforts of well-meaning oppressors to impose an artificial veneer of acceptable behavior upon a subjugated population rarely end well. Narrative symmetry mandates that each cell block's candidate and fellow supporters acquaint us with a backstory encompassing scenes depicting her particular where-I-went-wrong moment and her how-I-wound-up-in-jail moment, as well as her how-I-feel-about-it-now and her what-I-dream-of-someday thoughts. Unfortunately, Rivera's love of spectacle necessitates an additional playlist of infectious ethno-pop music composed by Hector Buitrago and performed by Ruben Gonzalez and his four-piece combo, several big-skirted dance numbers choreographed by Maija Garcia, and far too many oxygen-sucking interludes mocking the agenda of televised pageants, all stretching the opening-night running time of Another Word for Beauty to nearly three hours. No one can deny the professional polish displayed by a cast mostly imported by director Steve Cosson from his New York-based company, who deliver a varied group portrait of the subculture under scrutiny, ranging from Socorro Santiago's matronly Ciliana—born in Buen Pastor and reluctant to leave her "home"—to Dan Domingues's smarmy "guest host" struggling to retain his machismo amid a barrage of raucous whistles and shrill catcalls. Indeed, so charmed and entertained are we by such novelties as a guerrilla-uniform striptease routine or a ballad of a lover's revenge sung with special fervor by a real-life husband-murderer, that we can almost forget the grotesque irony of the exploitive charade to which we are witness—a brief moment of glory before injustice and corruption reign once again.
