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Captain Pantoja and the Special Service
In Pantaleon y las visitadoras (Captain Pantoja and The Special Service), the Peruvian Army recruits Captain Pantaleon Pantoja, a model soldier, a man of integrity and a good husband, for an outlandish mission: to create and manage a Special Service of "visitors" to fulfill the troop's necessities and to put an end to the rapes of local women by the garrison. Even though it is everything against his moral code, Captain Pantoja is a consummate soldier and the visiting service quickly becomes the most efficient branch of the armed forces. Captain Pantoja's official progress reports are filled with military statistics and jargon which often become the story's funniest moments. Based on true events, the story questions and satirizes the moral standards of the government, the bourgeois and the army. The performance is in Spanish, with English simultaneous translation.
Pictured: A scene from Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (photo © Michael Palma)
nytheatre.com review
Montserrat Mendez · October 15, 2009
If Anthony Alvarez, Denise Quinones, and Zulema Clares were not in the cast of Pantaleon y las Visitadoras, the new musical adapted from the Mario Vargas Llosa novel of the same name and currently playing at Repertorio Espanol, it would have been a less-than wonderful experience.
The entire cast as a matter of fact is an absolute knockout, but these three actors bring the musical to a level of event. They make it both significant and grand. The enchantment comes from them. Though I should also say that Andres Cabas helps them by giving New York theatre one of the most exciting scores I have heard in a long time.
Otherwise the musical is almost a "break-even" affair. It doesn't lack talent, or passion in its cast, and it is a compelling story. But it also has a first act so long that it would test the patience of a saint, and it therefore loses the energy with which it first explodes onto the stage.
The musical tells the story of Pantaleon, the perfect Peruvian soldier, and family man (he travels with his mother and devoted wife to every assignment.). In this case, he has been sent to a small village near the Amazonian jungle to take care of some soldiers with a discipline problem. They seem to be getting all the girls in the village pregnant. He arrives, studies the problem with the help of the prostitutes at the local brothel, and comes up with an ingenious and unorthodox solution. He will begin an organization, in which the government will pay these ladies so they can "service" their countrymen. It goes on to become the best run branch of the military, which is both a cause of pride and embarrassment to the country. For those of you who need an American frame of reference, imagine a musical with the political bent of Urinetown, the subversive humor of Catch-22, and the raunchiness of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Directed with fastidious and nearly flawless attention to detail by Jorge Ali Triana, the musical is a technical wonder, with projections that appear to float in mid-air, and an inventive staging language. It does not necessarily explore the darker themes of the novel, but plays out as a musical telenovela, with larger-than-life characters and barely-there costumes for the prostitutes, creating a world that reaches near Broadway levels of intoxication.
Speaking of which, if this were a Broadway musical it would make Tony nominees of Anthony Alvarez, who undergoes a magnificent transformation as Pantaleon, and Zulema Clares, his adoring, adorable, devoted wife. She is the grounding force of the musical; while other characters are broad and over the top, she has found a balance which is always connected to the truth, and by default gives the story its heart.
Okay, I'm going to allow give one more compliment—because Denise Quinones takes the stage like Kathleen Turner took the film Body Heat. She plays "La Brazilena," the one and only prostitute who tempts and for a brief time wins Pantaleon's affection. It's a thrilling performance for two reasons. It's thrilling to watch someone with the kind of star wattage that can absolutely take your breath away and send you searching for an asthma inhaler. But it's also thrilling to see someone give it their all in a bold, risky, and marvelous performance. It's the type of performance that made Sutton Foster a star. A shame the same will probably not happen here.
At the end of the night, I left the theatre feeling both elated and unsatisfied. I wanted more by wanting less. And I wondered the impact the story would have had, if only its first act had been more carefully edited to fulfill all of its potential.
This page updated Saturday, November 21, 2009 2:17 PM
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