Paradise Red:

mother knows worst (and gives a good bitch slap)

The most boring episode of a telenovela is the last one where everyone is happy again.

So explains the estranged son, escaped from the asylum, at the beginning of Paradise Red. Fortunately Paradise Red is an entire telenovela compressed into one snappy and melodramatic package.

It is also a deconstruction of the oeuvre of the telenovela, an exploration of Chilean national guilt, a coming out tale, and a commentary on the evil people do in the pursuit of power and luxury. Sound heavy? Of course it is, televnovelas are packed with excessive drama, plot, overwrought emotions and digressions. Paradise Red is a soap opera on steroids, so heavy that it is hilarious.

Manuel Montegrande, where are you?

There is a gay love story at the heart of Paradise Red and the sexual longing and desire is embodied by the sinuously sensual Alex Muir Contreras. That Contreras is also expressing the desire of a nation longing to be free is only apparent in hindsight, when the play's themes rise in the memory to complement the vision of Contreras shirtless and writhing in ecstasy, or sub-consciously stroking his body while recounting his trysts with both the boy next door and the mysterious Marxist and gold-toothed Adonis, Manuel Montegrande.

Contreras is also extremely adept at differentiating between his narrative functions, his character and the stylized demands of this satirical rendering of a telenovela. He is also compelling to watch with a physical charisma that grips the eyes. And somehow he holds his own against stellar diva competition.

What are the rules of this house? Emotions are for women.

Benjamin Riofrio, as Contreras incarnates him, must have learned dramatics and sexuality at the knee of his mother Luciana. Carmen Aguirre takes visible delight in the mood swings and high camp of her dragon of a poisonous maternal figure. She steps into the spotlight to explain the conventions of a telenovela villain before tucking the spotlight under her arm and tearing those said conventions to shreds. She turns on a dime from drunk to terror to tearful to conniving, and is a monstre sacré diva the entire time.

The third corner of the familial triangle from hell is Rosa Laborde who showcases the split second timing needed to cover a gamut of emotions, sometimes simultaneously, while masquerading as a dumb "dirty blonde." Though the main battles are between mother and son, or son and guilt, Laborde gets to deliver the most shocking and sordid revelations which also gets the biggest laughs.

Though this production of Paradise Red is billed as a workshop it is already accomplished and slick. The complicated structure is deftly handled by director Marilo Nunez through a set of strong visual and aural cues as well as the comic abilities of the cast.

Previously playwright Bruce Gibbons Fell talked of his ambitions with Paradise Red, and he must be head tossing, arms across wide eyes, bitch slapping happy that this first of the trilogy is so entertaining without losing any of the thematic darkness.