Fiction writing has never been as painful as it is in “Dramatic Personae,” where characters come to life, haunt, sometimes even threaten to stab the author until they finish writing.
That is the situation that the writers within “Dramatic Personae” find themselves in. Written by Peruvian playwright Gonzalo Rodriguez Risco’s and funded by the Playwright's Realm (which produces one work a year from up-and-coming playwrights), the play made its premiere Off Broadway at the Cherry Lane Studio on Oct. 1.
The play follow three writers - Lucas (Felix Solis), Ben (Gerardo Rodriquez) and Marla (Liza Fernandez) - as they try and transform their slivers of ideas into stories, holding weekly meetings to try and develop those ideas, all the while asking the eternal question of any writer: "Where does inspiration come from?" Real life? Some dark recesses of the mind?
This all occurs during the Peru’s political conflict of the early 1990’s, which happens in the background and the audience never sees it, save for the occasional explosion which is treated as a nuisance rather than a catastrophe.
There is a semblance of something achingly like conflict. Yet the title “Dramatis Personae” acts as its own plot summary. It is not a political drama.
It is winter and a storm is raging. Unfortunately, this one is located not outside but inside. “John Gabriel Borkman,” now playing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, takes place on a set where no walls separate the house inside and the outside snow.
