Theatre review: Clean/Espejos is by turns hilarious and devastatingly sad
Christine Quintana’s play in Spanish and English takes audiences to the real Mexico, deep into her characters’ hearts
Alexandra Lainfiesta and Genevieve Fleming in Clean/Espejos. Photo by Sewari Campillo
The Cultch and Neworld Theatre in association with Western Canada Theatre present Clean/Espejos live at the Historic Theatre to March 19 and online from April 5 to 10 as part of the Femme Festival
CHRISTINE QUINTANA’S beautifully written Clean/Espejos is a lush, layered, complex story with the depth, poetry, and drama of a great novel. Just like when you’re standing barefoot on a beach as the tide comes in and your feet slowly sink down into cool, wet sand—then sink a little more—this bilingual two-hander takes you deeper and deeper and deeper into the characters’ lives, hearts, and minds in the most thoughtful, impactful of ways as it goes.
Translated and adapted by Paula Zelaya-Cervantes, Clean/Espejos is performed in English and Spanish, with subtitles in both languages projected on a backdrop that’s centred by a perfectly made king-size hotel bed that we seem to be looking at from above, the crisp white sheets folded with precision.
The setting is a resort in Cancun, the kind of place with multiple turquoise pools, swim-up bars, breezy patios, and endless tropical cocktails served in plastic cups. Paradise, for some. The real Mexico? Nope.
Alexandra Lainfiesta plays Adriana, the hotel’s manager of housekeeping. Genevieve Fleming is Sarah, who has flown in with her family from Vancouver to be maid of honour at her little sister’s destination wedding. Quintana takes her time revealing the painful truths that each is coping with while maintaining the script’s swift pace. Adriana has always escaped difficult situations by throwing herself into work; Sarah, keeper of a long-held, traumatic personal secret, has turned to alcohol and sleep. Their worlds collide ever so briefly.
Only occasionally sharing dialogue, the two deliver monologues that are by turns gripping, hilarious, and devastatingly sad. They manoeuvre Shizuka Kai’s set pieces that look like gigantic, unfurling rolls of toilet paper and that also act as deck chairs, buses, cars, the SkyTrain, bathroom sinks, and more.
Lainfiesta’s Adriana is a sparkplug who can roll her Rs and yell with volcanic intensity. Whether embodying her sharp-edged key character or imitating Adriana’s mom or the youngest staff person on the housekeeping team, Lainfiesta is rivetingly expressive through physical gestures and vocal inflections; she’s got dance moves, too. Fleming’s Sarah is a more nuanced character, though equally affecting with her vulnerability, sincerity, and self-criticism. Directed by Chelsea Haberlin and Daniela Atiencia, Clean/Espejos touches on race, class, grief, pain, loss, and much more, without ever attempting to solve moral issues or answer pressing questions. Rather, it is pure, potent storytelling at its best—enough to bring the crowd at the Sunday matinee performance to a standing ovation.
If you’re the kind of traveller who wants to venture beyond an all-inclusive resort’s security gates to discover the real Mexico (or who would never stay at such a spot in the first place), this is a play for you.
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