By MICHAEL NUNES
Staff Writer
RED BANK — Two River Theater will present two Spanish-language performances of its upcoming play, “Ropes,” in an attempt to reach out to the Hispanic community.
“When I first came here, I was quite impressed by the vitality and size of the Latino community that’s right here around the theater,” said John Dias, artistic director at the theater.
“I thought that it would be great to find ways for the theater to connect with this immediate community and try to engage the whole of this community in conversations and use the theater to get people talking about ourselves as neighbors,” he said.
“Ropes” revolves around three brothers named Paul, Prince and Presley as they uncover the mystery of their estranged father, who turns out to be the world’s greatest tightrope walker.
The play, originally written in Spanish by contemporary Mexican playwright, Barbara Colio, was translated by Maria Alexandria Beech and directed by Lisa Rothe.
Dias feels that the production will attract all members of the community because of its universal message.
“It is a play about family and a play about fathers and sons. It’s very universal, and I would say that it would resonate with a Latino audience in all the same ways and for all the same reasons that it would resonate with any audience,” said Dias.
The theater became aware of the play during the Crossing Borders Festival, which saw an influx of Latino playwrights come to the theater in order to share their stories with the community.
“Every once and awhile, as it happens with any work of art, there’s something that just resonates in a really immediate and powerful way, and that’s what happened with me and many of our audience [members] when we heard the first reading of this play,” said Dias.
For Dias, this is a step to bring different communities together through the power of the stage.
“The communities of people who are accustomed to this theater, who have already been coming here, who generally [are] not Latinos, who then can find this place to be a place where they can interact with their neighbors in situations where they wouldn’t outside of the theater,” he said.
“The theater can be a kind of town-square-like place for people to come and exchange stories and understand each other’s stories.”
The play will run from Feb. 20 through March 20. The Spanish-language performances will take place March 3 and 5.