Sharing in the experience

Young Chang

Playwright Nilo Cruz says plays need to be experienced instead of

just read or heard. The words need to be uttered by actors and the

rhythms need to be felt.

“This is a way of experiencing it,” Cruz said of featuring his

work in the Hispanic Playwrights Project at South Coast Repertory.

The annual 10-day event, which will end Sunday, features four

readings by four playwrights and a reprise of last year’s “California

Scenarios,” a series of short works by five playwrights. “Scenarios”

began running July 25 in the Isamu Noguchi-designed outdoor sculpture

garden that inspired the plays.

Written by Luis Alfaro, Joann Farias, Anne Garcia-Romero, Jose

Cruz Gonzalez and Octavio Solis, the one-act plays in “Scenarios” are

“Desert Longing,” “Two Steps Forward, One Step Back,” “Encarnacion,”

“Odysseus Cruz” and “The Gardens of Aztlan.”

“I really love them all because they are so varied, from some

really high comedic farcical characters to moments of dramas,” said

actress Monica Sanchez, who is in nearly all of the mini-works. “The

beauty of the theater is that we can actually act and push the

envelopes of our physical characteristics ... to use all of your

instruments -- your voice, your body, your physical language -- but

beyond that, your imagination.”

Imagination will play the biggest role though in the readings,

which began Friday and will continue today. The audience will have to

imagine play elements such as costumes and sets while actors present

a rather bare production.

“It’s an opportunity to hear the play, and that’s our obligation

there as actors -- to be as true as possible to the language and to

the intention of every theme,” Sanchez said.

Cruz, whose work “The Beauty of the Father” will be read today,

said he doesn’t feel nervous about the experience, but rather

vulnerable. A previous work by the writer -- “Two Sisters and a

Piano” -- was produced on SCR’s Second Stage in 1999. The playwright

is no newcomer to writing, sharing and watching his plays come to

life, but even he still feels exposed when a new work is read aloud.

“For me, it’s extremely helpful in terms of shaping the piece,

whether I need to expand a character or need to expand a certain

situation. And I have made several changes while being here,” the New

York writer said.

Rogelio Martinez, who wrote “Lost in Translation,” said he has

faith that his audience will go wherever the play takes them. The

story is about a couple that gets blown from Miami to Cuba in a hot

air balloon. In Cuba, they discover they belong there more than they

ever imagined.

“I was very much interested in the structure of farce and how it

could lend itself to complications, and I was also interested in

coincidence and how intelligent an audience can be and how they can

accept anything you give them,” said Martinez, also from New York.

The playwright added that having his work read will help him grow

as a writer.

“I see where it needs to go, what works, what got everyone excited

and where suddenly it dipped,” Martinez said.