Adoration of the Old Woman
by José Rivera

Set against the backdrop of Puerto Rico's struggle with the issue of statehood, a young woman, who speaks no Spanish, moves in with her 105-year-old great grandmother who speaks no English.

Both women deal with problems of love - the younger with two new suitors and the older with the ghost of her husband's mistress.

"...

There is more - much, much more - to José Rivera's new play, ADORATION OF THE OLD WOMAN.

But the play's internal engine - its life and humor and earthiness - is driven by the shockingly profane, deeply poetic words of this spiritual old woman.

Doña Belen may be the most fascinating character in Rivera's fertile oeuvre ... his plays are infused with the flavor we've come to associate with Latin writing - the rich imagery and lyricism of Federico García Lorca, the earthy sensuality and surrealism of Gabriel García Márquez.

But Rivera's concerns are universal.

His characters may be brown-skinned, but his subject is the human soul.

ADORATION OF THE OLD WOMAN is Rivera's most overtly political play yet.

It's a work that combines Rivera's heightened sense of language and visually rich dreamscapes with a deeply felt probing of Puerto Rican independence.

It's part ghost story, part political debate.

It's magical realism meets a Puerto Rican Crossfire ... if Rivera never really seems to make his - the decision about Puerto Rican self-determination - he has left us with the evidence we need to make one for ourselves.

And in that he fulfills what the physician-turned-playwright Anton Chekov said is the writer's chief responsibility: not providing a cure, but correctly diagnosing the problem."

-Joel Beers, Orange County Weekly