ZOETROPE
September 14 - October 8 Abrons Arts Center
Zoetrope tells the story of an underdog military postal officer with a dream. Until he dies. Then it tells the story of his ex-wife, her sister, his lover, their son, the playwright René Marqués, and El Grito de Lares––Puerto Rico’s one full day of independence. Live-feed video and dance carry the play from Lares, Puerto Rico to Harlem, New York and back as it flips between Spanish and English with supertitles in both languages throughout.
Written and Directed by Javier Antonio González
Produced by Nicole Green
With Nicole Betancourt, Laura Butler Rivera, Christopher Cancel Pomales, Yaraní Del Valle Piñero, Javier Antonio González, Susanna Hoffman, Kairiana Núñez Santaliz, Kevin Emilio Pérez,Gabriela Saker, Pelé Sanchez Tormes, Veraalba Santa, David Skeist
Zoetrope is performed with a rotating cast.
Set by Jian Jung
Original Lighting by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew
Lighting by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew and Alex deNevers
Video by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew and Attilio Rigotti
Sound by Hao Bai
Costumes by Cristina Agostini Fitch
Stage Management by Alejandra Maldonado and Brooke Bell
This production of Zoetrope has received generous support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation and from the Café Royal Foundation.
Zoetrope was first performed at Pregones Theater and developed through Artist Space at Pregones and in residency at the Loisaida Center. It was written in the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers’ Group.
Photo by Jody Christopherson
Photo by Jody Christopherson
Photo by Jody Christopherson
Photo by Jody Christopherson
Photo by Jody Christopherson
Photo by Hunter Canning
Photo by Hunter Canning
Photo by Hunter Canning
Photo by Hunter Canning
Photo by Hunter Canning
Photo by Marcos Toledo
What People Are Saying
“The actors slid between languages with ease. Conceptually, I can’t think of a better way to show the divides at the heart of this absorbing and beautifully enacted saga.”
— Morris, Stephen Leigh, “Encuentro 2014 Makes a National Case for Latino Theatre,” AMERICAN THEATER MAGAZINE, November 18, 2014
“Zoetrope is an innovative, hybrid and multilingual proposal that, from the ruptures and amalgams of representative methods, synthesizes the ever-living stories of the diaspora.
— Robles, Rojo, Zoetrope y la (des)ilusión escénica, 80 GRADOS, May 1st, 2015
“Javier Antonio González and Caborca’s creative capaciousness reconceives the Latinx family drama, and in this way, they expand the aesthetic horizons of Latinx theater in extraordinary new directions even as their bold experimentation takes up an important theatrical discourse that ardently attends to Puerto Rico’s embittered history of colonization and possession.”
— Mayorga, Irma. Critical Introduction, Encuentro Latinx Performance for the New American Theater, Northwestern University Press, 2019.