Clean/Espejos

Online streaming from The Cultch until April 10, 2022
Tickets: $15 from thecultch.com or 604-251-1363

Posted April 7, 2022

If you missed the in-theatre world premiere of Christine Quintana’s Clean/Espejos, you’ve got another chance. For a limited time, it’s available online; it’s innovative, bilingual, a treat for the eyes and one of the best shows of the season.

Two characters: Adriana is Mexican, an efficient, hard-working floor manager in a Cancun resort;  Sarah is Canadian, a heavy drinker and a bridesmaid at her younger sister’s destination wedding. Two languages: when Adriana speaks Spanish, which is most of the time except for very careful, precise English, the captioning is in English. When Sarah speaks English, which is most of the time except for some halting, badly-pronounced Spanish, captioning is in Spanish. Adriana and Sarah’s  two worlds collide one rainy night.

Directing for Neworld Theatre, Chelsea Haberlin and Daniela Atiencia cast two amazing actors: exquisite and marvellous Alexandra Lainfiesta and Genevieve Fleming who plays Sarah like an open wound. In an interview, Quintana says she wanted to do a deep dive into these two characters and by the end of Clean/Espejos, we are alternately drowning in their sadness, then cheered by their resilience.

There are secrets – although I was a bit mystified by Adriana’s sorrow over the death of her father who brutalized the family when she was a child.  Sarah’s secret is nasty, sexual in nature and it leads to a misunderstanding that could have devastating consequences for Adriana.

There are exuberant Thelma-and-Louise moments when Sarah and Adriana go off on a joyride together in Sarah’s rented car but the bonding comes to an abrupt end when Adriana says, inches from Sarah’s face, “You. Are. Not. My. Friend.”

That is the moment – for me and, I suspect, for many of us – for a difficult truth: we travellers are highly privileged and the Adrianas of the tourist industry are employed to make our every moment pleasurable: clean linen, spotless bathrooms with an endless supply of 3-ply toilet paper, well-stocked minibars, all the hot water you could ever want, azure swimming pools. Everything we desire. But at the end of their shifts, these Adrianas go home to very different worlds.

[For another perspective on travel and the privileged class, read The Fever by Wallace Shawn, described in the Britannica as, “a caustic 90-minute monologue that dissects the power relations between the world’s poor and elite classes and finds a pervasive moral deficiency in the latter.” In fact, The Fever would make a terrific companion piece for Clean/Espejos.]

In addition to Lainfiesta and Fleming, Haberlin and Atiencia gathered a stellar design team beginning with Shizuka Kai whose set features two large movable pieces that look like  huge toilet paper rolls or sleek, contoured patio loungers backgrounded by the image of a perfectly made bed, satiny coverlet, silky pillows. Add to this Candelario Andrade’s projections and the overall effect is lush, bathed in Harika Xu’s constantly changing wash of vibrant colour that makes this production simply fabulous looking. When Lainfiesta isn’t wearing Adriana’s prim, beige uniform, costume designer Jessica Oostergo puts her in a short, body-hugging, shimmery sequined dress and Lainfiesta simply sizzles. The moves. The body. Olé.

Paula Zelaya-Cervantes is credited with translation and adaptation of Quintana’s script; the captioning is really an interesting feature – lucky are those who speak both Spanish and English; but surprisingly, the captioning is not distracting.

Tourism is Mexico’s lifeblood; so, to travel or not to travel? American dollars and respect are what we have to offer. Is it enough?