As playwright Erlina Ortiz composes dialogue for her work, she hears the voices of her characters in her head.
Mostly, but not always, they speak English.
That’s why the characters in Ortiz’s “Siluetas,” offered by Power Street Theatre through June 23, sometimes converse in their first languages – Arabic and Spanish.
“That’s just the way these characters are,” Ortiz said. “It’s what I hear in my head.”
And because “Siluetas” is a musical, Power Street Theatre’s production will be song and speech in three languages – English, Spanish, and Arabic — a trilingual theatrical challenge that will not be, Ortiz assures us, more than the audience can absorb.
“The important information is received in all the languages,” including written summaries of each scene available in each language, Ortiz said during a break in the last days of rehearsals before the show previewed at Temple University’s Randall Theater.
“Even though there are a lot of ups and downs in the plot,” she said, “you can ask somebody the arc of the story and they’ll be able to answer in one or two sentences.”
Or maybe just one word: Home.
The two main characters are accidental roommates who grapple with their own traumas around the idea of home. Dinora, a Cuban American, was sent to the United States as a teenage bride by her mother. She hoped her daughter would escape food shortages on the island and find the American Dream. The reality turned out differently, and after years of a failed marriage, Dinora is on her own.
“When your home is no longer what you thought of it before, what do you do?” said Ortiz, who came to the United States from the Dominican Republic when she was four. She grew up in Reading and now lives in Haddonfield.
For financial reasons, Dinora, played by Tony-award winning actor KO (Karen Olivo), ends up rooming with Angel Alzeidan’s character, Khalilah. Khalilah came to the United States to study art with plans to return to her family in Syria. But, in 2016, as smoldering violence escalated in Syria, her situation changed.
“People living outside Syria couldn’t go home anymore. What does it mean when your home no longer feels safe?” Ortiz said.
Ortiz said that when she began thinking about “Siluetas” in 2016, “I was listening to the news 24/7.”
There was the election of President Donald Trump, accompanied by the Access Hollywood tape in which he described grabbing women by their genitals, Ortiz said, listing some of what she heard. There was his pending decision to re-tighten travel to Cuba after a decades-long blockade had been lifted during President Barack Obama’s term. And the war news from Syria was nonstop.
Her decision to turn Dinora and Khalilah’s intertwining stories into a musical happened because “sometimes I just like to give myself a challenge,” she said.
“I’ve loved musicals my whole life and always wished I could work on a musical,” Ortiz said. “But I don’t know how to play a piano. I never thought I would have the musical talent to actually work on a musical.”
Meanwhile, through community and Latino circles, she met Broadway actor Robi Hager, of Philadelphia, a Mexican America teacher, composer, and a familiar presence on area stages. Ortiz began collaborating with Hager writing the music and lyrics. “Music comes easier to him in Spanish,” she said, although there are songs in all three languages in the play.
“If you don’t know exactly [what the words mean], you can lean into the feeling,” Ortiz said. “The music tells you a lot.”
Translator Fouad Sakhnini, a Palestinian refugee born and raised in Syria, guided the cast and crew through the dialogue and music lyrics in Arabic.
The play’s name, “Siluetas,” is inspired by the more than 200 silhouettes created by Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta in her Siluetas series in the 1970s. Mendieta photographed her own silhouette blended into earth, trees, dirt, fire, and other elements to show the ephemeral nature of both life and death.
In Ortiz and Hager’s work, home is also ephemeral, both solid and changing, with the silhouettes evoked by the Ancestors, who show up to provide wisdom and perspective throughout the play.
To enhance the “Siluetas” experience, storytellers from Land and Body, Power Street’s bilingual adult theater classes, will perform prior to the show June 1. There are special shows to celebrate Temple alum (June 5), youth (June 12), the theater industry (June 13), Juneteenth (June 19), and Pride (June 21), among other offerings including open mics, story circles and a night to encourage voter registration (June 7). With pre-registration, caregivers can take advantage of free childcare during Sunday matinees on June 9 and 16.
“Siluetas,” Power Street Theatre, through June 23, Randall Theater, Temple University, 2020 N. 13th St., Phila. https://www.powerstreettheatre.com/siluetas