Luis Alfaro’s oddly intoxicating “The Travelers” had its world premiere at the Magic Theatre last week. Set in a remote Central Valley monastery where the resident quintet of monks vacillate between devout Carthusian Brotherhood and profane Marx Brotherhood.
The comic rhythms of their routine monk-y business are thrown doubly off-kilter by an announcement that their motley order is being decommissioned by a budget-conscious diocese along with the sudden arrival of a stranger gushing blood from gunshot wounds to his chest.
What ensues is a brisk 80-minute hybrid of under-articulated ritual (Supertitles including ‘Rapture,’ ‘Homily’ and ‘Transition to the Religious’ are projected on an upstage cyclorama to divide the show into scenes; but their correlation with the stage action is not easily divined), ‘Iron John’ men’s encounter group, and a Tarantino-meets-Beckett mashup (One disabled monk, non-functional below his trunk, lives in a clawfoot bathtub).
As directed by Catherine Castellanos, it’s all surprisingly engaging, even when the script feels more like a tangle of musings than a clear storyline. The play was specifically written for this cast, whose first names are shared by their characters Brothers Brian (Rivera), Ogie (Zueleta), Yiyo (Ornelas), Daniel (Duque), and Juan (Amador), and, in various combinations, the actors, director, playwright and Magic artistic director Sean San José share long collaborative histories.
“The Travelers” feels intimate and organic, welcoming audience members into Tanya Orellana’s embracing set, its dusty breezes and flickering chandelier light blurring the the line between stage and seating. While not literally site-specific, it’s hard to imagine this play being this compelling without the precise chemistry of this particular company.
Call it soul-specific. And call it a singular success.
