![\"Review:](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/1570571199_Bad-Hombres-Good-Wives-4Oct19-89.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPor JEAN LOWERISON | Noticias de la zona alta<\/p>\n
What do you get when you cross Moli\u00e8re and Shakespeare with a few \u201ccontemporary\u201d topics like women\u2019s rights and who is \u201callowed\u201d to do what, and toss the whole wild salad with a Latinx perspective?<\/p>\n
You get \u201cBad Hombres\/Good Wives,\u201d the latest play by San Diego Repertory Theatre\u2019s playwright-in-residence Herbert Sig\u00fcenza, in its world premiere through Oct. 27 on the Rep\u2019s Lyceum Stage.<\/p>\n
The basic question at issue is whether contemporary women should (or even can) be forced into \u201cSchool for Wives\u201d-type roles as compliant wives, subservient to their husbands.<\/p>\n
La Lucha Grande (Roxane Carrasco), resplendent in near full-domme regalia (black, tight leather-looking gear) and black eye patch, is a banda singer and opens the show with a song. When somebody brings her a note onstage, she immediately announces that her husband has just died and she must attend his funeral.<\/p>\n
Then she thinks better of it: \u201cI never loved the son-of-a-bitch anyway. Let\u2019s finish the pinche show.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Is anti-machismo revolt in the air? I\u2019ll bet you can guess.<\/p>\n
The players include Don Ernesto (John Padilla), the macho head of a powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, and in the market for a compliant wife. The Don announces out of the blue to hard-of-hearing housekeeper Armida (Sig\u00fcenza in hilarious drag) that he is marrying the girl of his choice this very Sunday \u2014 Eva (Yvette Angulo), an orphan the Don found and placed in a nearby convent for this very reason. Now she is 16, and he figures she has been taught to obey orders without question.<\/p>\n
![\"Review:](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/1570571225_Bad-Hombres-Good-Wives-4Oct19-262.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Does he ever have a surprise coming.<\/p>\n
At the Culiacan bus station (where Armida is sent to pick up the girl), Eva is spotted by handsome Mario Grande, Jr. (Jose Balistrieri), son of recently expired rival cartel leader Mario Grande. Mario Junior is on the way to the old man\u2019s funeral. But once he meets Eva, his future plans are set \u2014 and they don\u2019t include Eva marrying Don Ernesto.<\/p>\n
Miss Eva may have been convent-raised, but she is a voracious reader and has adopted some ideas that Don Ernesto isn\u2019t counting on. And she thinks Junior is pretty cute.<\/p>\n
![\"Review:](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/1570571296_Bad-Hombres-Good-Wives-4Oct19-195.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Sig\u00fcenza, one of the founders of Chicago\u2019s satire troupe Culture Clash, tapped co-founder Ricardo Salinas to play the somewhat other-than-expected Padre Alberto, who provides some giggles in the confessional.<\/p>\n
Mario, Jr., Eva, Don Ernesto and La Lucha will all end up in Sinaloa for the funeral, along with Eva, Armida and two of the Don\u2019s young hitmen: Leo (Daniel Ramos III) and Tito (Salom\u00f3n Maya). There will be lots of sneaking around, stolen kisses, spying on and general verbal and physical mayhem (much of it in Spanish, sometimes with supertitles) before this \u201cnarconovela\u201d ends.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll also hear \u201cRomeo and Juliet\u201d and \u201cHamlet\u201d references and hear music by composer Bostich, played by Adrian Kulcho Rodriguez on solo tuba. That\u2019s something you don\u2019t see every day.<\/p>\n
![\"Review:](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Untitled-1-3.jpg\")
Sig\u00fcenza is a force in Latinx comedy, and it\u2019s always great to see him and his friends onstage. This show is a tad too scattershot for my taste. Maybe I\u2019m too old, but keeping up with all the nuttiness got to be a bit of a chore after a while.<\/p>\n
But I like the point: the men are no match for the women of Sinaloa.<\/p>\n