CUZCO

A review by Tanya Howard

Set along the Inca Trail, Cuzco is a sharp contemporary portrait of a Spanish couple increasingly lost to one another. In a bid to save their relationship, they travel to South America to find escape and reinvigoration in Cuzco, the conquistador stronghold, Inca city of the puma and tourist paradise. Their tragic love story unravels as they journey towards Macchu Picchu haunted by their own desires and the ghosts of Spain’s colonial past.

A backpacking trip to Machu Picchu is a last-ditch effort for a couple to save their crumbling relationship, and we watch them move from hostel room to hostel room as they completely disintegrate. The three-act play, that has been translated from Spanish, has all the potential to be a great piece but instead I ended up disappointed and confused.

He is up for a laugh, whilst she would rather be anywhere but their holiday, and when he goes out exploring she comes up with excuses to stay in the hostel and avoid being social. All she wants is to be alone whilst he is at times clawing for her attention, and at others a total contrast where he just wants to go out with new friends he has made.

Rather than taking the simple break up route he ends up in promiscuous affair with a new couple he has met, and she take homes a boy from the street and bathes with him. I’d like to think that the play has a lot more impact in its original Spanish text and the translation has just lost some of the initial power, or maybe it was just a little too high brow for my taste.

Dilek Rose and Gareth Jones, playing SHE and HE, were very passionate and spirited in their roles but with drawn out banal monologues and a confusing ending it’s hard to care for the characters and to stay on track with the play. Too many of the exchanges are long and humourless, and don’t even seem to be attracting the attention of the other actor on stage.

The play is not helped by the sounds which mixes sprightly traditional music with eerie tones, which implies a sense of dread but is confused when switched out because there is nothing jaunty about this play. An interesting import but without the emotional engagement and the failed links between history and modern realism the end result is sadly perplexing to say the least.