Zona Rosa Review

The play conveys the historically accurate account of Francisco Estrada Valle, a gay man in Mexico City during the 1980’s and 90’s who seeks to bring AIDS awareness to the strict, Catholic community that surrounds him, and his lover Yoni. The profound lesson of the play – the importance of becoming educated about AIDS and disassociating it with homosexuality- is conveyed to the audience with mostly language and little physical action. Through hearing the lines, one can see the heavy emotion in the story despite the lack of movements. It is this aspect, along with the projector displaying just one image at every scene, that successfully creates a blank slate for the audience to imagine, interpret and experience the emotions behind the dialogue individually. While this may be a consequence of the short production time, it gives the audience freedom to imagine the storyline on their own, and feel a deeper connection with the issue, whether or not it relates to them on a personal level.
Along with lack of movements, there was also no physical contact between characters, almost as if a barrier stood between them. This again seems to be metaphorical; during this time period, AIDS was not a highly touched subject, and therefore people avoided contact – both literally and figuratively – with homosexuality and AIDS. These stylistic details demonstrate that the play intends to be more educational than entertaining - despite the sporadically inserted playful language of the script – as it places emphasis upon the plot itself and rids of any whimsical distractions.   Lastly, the complimentary seating inside the venue speaks volumes about the issue that the play explores: the producers intend to educate the community rather than make a profit, and this play successfully does so.