None of the critics were impressed in three reviews that I have read (The Village Voice, TimeOut New York, and The New York Times ) on the play “underneathmybed” by Florencia Lozano. This play is about a family who immigrates to the suburbs of Massachusetts around 1982, fleeing the abduction and torture inflicted by the Argentinian government it’s people. The family consists of the parents, three daughters, and an aunt. The plot is mainly about how the youngest daughter Daisy is “haunted” by the stories told by the angry father, who tells stories about how young girls are tortured or how family members disappear. The verdict is that this play is unbalanced, and the playwright did not know how to use her materials. The combination of the theme of nightmares with political critique was not done as well as it could have been.
I think the Lozano might have wanted to do something similar to “Pan’s Labyrinth” but I don’t think I have ever seen a horror play, and I am not sure how effective it would be. Movies are effective because they have the help of computer graphics and imagination, whereas plays are played out in real time, and you are more aware that something is being acted out. However, I am sure a really powerful play can dissuade me from this idea. (According to Alexis Soloski, playwrights such as Eric Ehn and Neal Bell “successfully combined domestic drama with nightmare”). But judging from the reviews, “underneathmybed” will most likely not.
Shirley Mak
A scene from "underneathmybed"
The horror play as a genre has a great deal of difficulty keeping up with the special effects that are possible in the movies. The issues, values and expectations of live theater are an important issue for us to discuss. Maybe you’d like to make a theater outing one of your unscheduled outings?