Keeping Track
Salvage Vanguard Theater,
2803 Manor Rd., 474-6379, www.teatrovivo.org
Through April 25
Running time: 1 hr., 50 min.
Teatro Vivo brings the love. Most theatres in Austin have a specific audience, and while certainly audiences cross over from theatre to theatre, if you attend often enough, you’ll find that you can anticipate a certain audience vibe from every theatre company in the city. The Teatro Vivo vibe is love. Perhaps it’s because the company so often does domestic comedies like this original script by Erica Saenz, the Austin writer-performer’s first full-length play. Or perhaps it’s because Teatro Vivo has always been a family thing, run by the team of Rupert Reyes and Jo Ann Carreon-Reyes. Or perhaps it’s because, well, they just all love one another. And you can feel that love.
Saenz’s script, Keeping Track, is about love. Well, it’s ultimately about love. For most of the time, it’s about family members, both blood relatives and old friends, trying to manage one another’s business. While the actual relationships among the characters are somewhat complicated, what isn’t complicated is that Janet has become fed up with having her husband Albert’s mother, Carolina, living with them and doing not much more than watching her telenovelas. The first scene in the play involves Carolina finding Albert and Janet on the living room couch in flagrante delicto, so it’s not like Janet doesn’t have a case. Janet wants Carolina to move into a retirement home, and she brings up the subject at the worst possible time: during the first birthday party for her brother and sister-in-law’s new baby. And that baby is an issue as well. Janet’s brother Jack walks around with a monitor strapped to his hip because his wife, Melinda, is so acutely paranoid about the safety of her child. Everybody’s watching – and judging – everybody else, and, not to give too much away, just as Carolina loves watching her telenovelas, most of the characters end up watching one of the other characters performing in a real-life one – but not in the way you might think.
As is so often the case nowadays in theatrical productions all around Austin, this show has a fine cast. Director Estevan J. Zarate is probably most fortunate to have Teatro Vivo veteran JoJanie Segura as Carolina. Segura always brings a brash yet sincere comic energy to every role she plays and is always a pure pleasure to watch. Also effective are playwright Saenz as nosy family friend Jolie and especially Matt Sadler as the put-upon Jack. Sadler is called upon to eat a fairly prodigious amount of food onstage, and he eats as well as anyone I’ve ever seen. My bet is the enchiladas really are good.
The night I attended, the beginning of the show was a bit flat, but about 10 minutes in, the actors warmed up and the energy was palpably enjoyable. Saenz has written an admirably funny play that, at its core, is all sweetness. And while I don’t think I could exactly articulate all the complicated relationships in the show, that’s not such a bad thing. After all, we’re all brothers and sisters. We take care of one another. And, yes, that’s love.
This article appears in April 23 • 2010.