References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot leaves the audience cold The Phoenix Theatre

Salvador Dali was a complex, imaginative artist who grew and evolved throughout his career. Unfortunately, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, the recent offering at The Phoenix Theatre, did not match Dali’s brilliant trajectory.

The play is follows the woes of Gabriela, an army wife stuck in the desert of Barstow, Calif., as her husband Benito survived the rigors of war in the Persian Gulf then is moved from place to place training soldiers. Benito is torn between his need to prove his valor in combat versus Gabriela’s need to have the loving, devoted husband she married long ago.

The six-person cast, led by Melissa Solozano as Gabriela, was overmatched and underutilized by the pedantic prose written by Jose Rivera. Solozano valiantly tried to bring to life the tortured, drama-stricken character but ultimately was unable to muster the realism of such a poorly written character.

Gabriela’s husband Benito was portrayed by Noe Montez. This actor came across as stiff, uncomfortable and extremely unbalanced as he tried to play the complex and poorly written Benito. Montez completely missed the character, and his attempt reminded me of a vicious parody of a comedian imitating Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowlaski in A Streetcar named Desire or William Shatner as the overwrought Captain Kirk.

The Moon, played by Matthew Roland, was symbolic of the failure of this play. Roland battled to bring a sense of realism, depth and characterization to an abstract, vague symbol to which was constantly referred throughout the play but never truly was defined or given a purpose within the story. In the end, just as the character Moon was left wanting and undefined, so was Matthew’s performance.

Phebe Taylor was brilliantly costumed as the seductive Cat, the temptress to the predatory Coyote. But Taylor was inconsistent as the salacious Cat. She was convincingly feline and did as much as could be expected with such a confusing part, but at times appeared uninspired during parts of the dialogue.

The hormone-driven Martin was weakly played by Julio Chaves. Martin was written to be a lust-driven teenager drawn to the lonely and confused Gabriela. However, Julio simply came across as creepy and pathetic in a sad, lost seemingly Kevin Federline-inspired performance.

In contrast to the difficult struggle of the overmatched cast, Coyote played by Nate Santana tried to breathe life into the dying performance. Eloquently portraying a Coyote yearning for the wildness and bloodlust of the dying desert, Nate found the proper balance between angst and passion. It was a shame that the Coyote part was but a minor portion of the play because the time Nate spent on stage was the highlight of the show.

The premise of the story has great potential. The angst of a lonely, striving housewife trying to save her marriage to a heroic, out of place soldier and better her social and economic standing could ignite the stage. However, the overblown prose penned by Jose Rivera never allowed the cast to bring the characters to life. This story is difficult to watch and is a shame because the Phoenix Theatre traditionally brings challenging story lines to compelling life. This offering just happened to miss the mark in executing a poorly written story.

by Andrew Duane Smith