Urban Ensemble Theater Collective - FLICKERING PARADISE: A Caribbean Fábula

In Flickering Paradise: A Caribbean Fábula, a dark comedy with Afro-Latinx music, residents of the fictional, Caribbean island of Cayabo—whose history includes centuries of colonization—struggle to make ends meet while dealing with disruptive blackouts, extreme austerity measures, malignant spirits, and an influx of crypto investors seeking tax-free profits and cheap, beachfront condos. 

Stef, a community organizer and non-Western healer, attempts to fight back by cultivating the spirit of a radical ancestor. She participates in more secular activism, too, including securing a grant for solar panels for the apartment building. Complicating matters is a podcaster, Smedley, who travels to Cayabo to run a cryptocurrency scam, and Stef's husband, Felipe, a laid-off lineman and plena musician who secretly appropriates Stef's non-Western magic of resistance, along with apartment building's grant money, for his own financial gain. When all seems lost and everything's on the line, the re-appearance of the ancestor's spirit, abetted by Stef's ritualistic drumming, a mythical rock, and Claudia's courageous, unexpected transformation, seems to save the day. But then something else happens, as the play takes a sharp turn before arriving at its unexpected ending. 

Written and directed by critically acclaimed playwright Rick Mitchell, with music by renowned Puerto Rican composer and percussionist Angel Luís Figueroa, and choreography by Shenandoah Harris, the artistic director of Psychopomp Dance Theater. Presented as a workshop production by Urban Ensemble Theater Collective ("an outstanding ensemble takes the dark comedy to dizzying heights" - LA Weekly) in association with Highways.