Subtext Studio Theatre Company’s production of Omar Vicente Fernandez’s Que Te Vaya Bien marks the reunion of two actors—Nelson A. Rodriguez and Adriel Irizarry—who delivered knockout performances as boxers in Visión Latino’s production of Franky D. Gonzalez’s That Must Be the Entrance to Heaven during last year’s Destinos: Chicago International Latino Theater Festival. In Que Te Vaya Bien, receiving its world premiere as part of the seventh edition of Destinos, they play a father and son who have to come to terms with their troubled, dysfunctional relationship.
Que Te Vaya Bien
Through 10/27: Fri–Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM; also Sat 10/26 2:30 PM; Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, subtextstudiotc.org, $26 (students/seniors/military $16), in English with Spanish subtitles
The boxing ring was the stage in Gonzalez’s play; in Fernandez’s, it’s the Wrigley Field bleachers as the Cubs play the Brewers, this duo turning them into the not-so-friendly confines. Elias (Irizarry), an overstressed attorney for the Cook County DA’s Office, receives a voicemail from his wife announcing that she is pregnant. The news comes at a strained moment in their relationship. He is on his way to meet his father Mario (Rodriguez) after finally accepting his invitation to go to at least one ball game with him.
It’s hard to write about what comes next in Que Te Vaya Bien without giving away a major plot reveal, one that really doesn’t come as a shock given how Fernandez prepares the audience for it through small clues in the dialogue and how director Octavio Montes De Oca and sound designer Gina Montalvo manipulate sound to create a sense of isolation and hyperreality. Suffice it to say that it’s a play about the things that are left unsaid in a relationship: the regret, the anger, the mixed feelings that weigh us down, and the fear of making the same mistakes our ancestors made. Irizarry delivers all of the above with such strident force that you fear he is about to lose his mind while Rodriguez’s Mario delivers most of his ripostes with devil-may-care elan. Que Te Vaya Bien demands, and repays you for, your complete attention.
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