Nov 05, 2004  |  By: PATRICK FOLlIARD  | COMMENTS     

WHEN DO YOU pull the plug on life support? With “La Lechuga” (“The Lettuce”), Venezuelan playwright Cesar Sierra’s provocative dark comedy, Teatro de la Luna tackles this thorny topic head on.

Every year, the adult Martinez children gather half-heartedly to celebrate their elderly father’s birthday. That he is in the next room brain dead and on life support makes little difference really, since they never liked him much anyway.

But this year, the party is different.

Virginia (Nucky Walder) and her husband, Hector (Mario Marcel), who have taken care of the old man for nine years, are marking the occasion with an announcement: They’ve grown weary of being caretakers and think it’s high time to pass the responsibility on to one of Virginia’s younger brothers.

For Victor (Oscar Ceville), it’s out of the question. He and his pregnant wife, Dora (Anabel Marcano), live in an already overcrowded house with their half dozen children.

Vinicio (Peter Pereyra), the gay son, has the room but still he grasps for any reason — the expense, the responsibility of his cat, dog, and goldfish — not to take his father.

As the evening unfolds, it’s clear that the characters have issues in addition to the life-with-father problem.

Victor is miserable in his marriage. Very Catholic Dora is a hypocrite. Armed with phallic balloons, nonstop wit, and a chocolate cake upon his arrival, Vinicio’s over-the-top flamboyancy masks his sadness. And Virginia is generally angry.

IN AN EXCELLENT cast, Mario Marcel is especially good as Virginia’s husband, Hector, the first of the characters to suggest a solution other than keeping the father alive. He delivers a subtle, even-handed performance. His character is neither evil nor saintly.

Nucky Walder exudes Virginia’s pain and frustration.

As Victor, Oscar Ceville perfectly captures the intensity of a pissed-off father with too many children. Marcano gives dimension to Dora, adding layers to the perfect mother image that the character strives to project. And well-built actor Pereyra is quite convincing as Vinicio.

Under the careful direction of Harold Ruiz, the 80-minute play has moments of hysterical pitch, and at other times it slows to a deliberate, thoughtful pace.

It makes sense that Mariano Lucioni’s set for “La Lechuga” looks more like the waiting room in a doctor’s office than Virginia’s living room, because what takes place in that sleek, monochromatic setting is more waiting than anything else.

The playwright Sierra never makes it clear exactly what kind of a father the old man was. He could have been anything from monstrously abusive to a tad bit emotionally unavailable. In doing so, the playwright creates a sort of a vegetative “every dad,” allowing more of the audience to relate to the adult children and their dilemma onstage.

Performed in Spanish with excellent simultaneous translation on headphones, “La Lechuga” is an entertaining and provocative piece. It raises some important questions, and stimulates some good after-theater discussion. Consider taking a sibling.