Review: A Female Bullfighter Struggles to Fully Realize Herself in Torera

At the very least, Torera offers a fascinating inside look at a sport, bullfighting, that many Americans may not know about beyond broad cultural stereotypes. But a key to what makes Monet Hurst-Mendoza’s new play resonate beyond anthropological interest lies in its title. Though in English, “torera” technically means “bullfighter,” the fact that the Spanish word ends with “a” indicates it specifically translates to “female bullfighter.” Such a character, as well as the physical, emotional, and societal difficulties that come with being a woman in a historically male-dominated sport, is at the heart of this vibrant new work, being presented in its New York premiere by WP Theater (in a coproduction with Connecticut’s Long Wharf Theatre, the Sol Project, and Latinx Playwrights Circle).

Elena (Jacqueline Guillén) is the “torera” of the title. Even as a child in Mexico, she evinces not just an interest, but a true blood-and-thunder passion for bullfighting. The play opens with her horsing around with friend Tanok (Jared Machado), whose father, former legendary torero Don Rafael (Jorge Cordova), is raising to follow in his footsteps. By contrast, Elena’s mother, Pastora (Elena Hurst), has forbidden her daughter to take up the sport because her husband died during a bullfight. It is mostly because he was Don Rafael’s righthand man that Don Rafael has allowed both her and Elena to live under his roof.

Torera takes place over the span of more than a decade. During that time, Elena and Tanok’s lives take starkly different paths, with Elena scraping together a living as a cleaning lady while Tanok goes on to bullfighting fame and glory. Beyond the limitations imposed by a patriarchal society, class differences percolate underneath the play’s surface, with Tanok and Don Rafael’s bullfighting success bringing them to a higher societal plane than Elena and Pastora. Despite such challenges, though, Elena and Tanok remain friends, to the point where Tanok suggests Elena join him behind the scenes in bullfighting matches—a move that ends up having serious consequences when Elena eventually accepts.

Hurst-Mendoza is essentially telling a classic sports-underdog tale, but she has crafted distinct, memorable characters, and has filled her canvas with enough distinctive social and cultural details to make it all seem fresh. Those expecting the play to address the animal-rights issues that have led bullfighting to be banned in most parts of the world (Mexico City, home to the world’s largest bullring, banned traditional bullfighting in March) may be disappointed. The playwright’s own program note acknowledges them but emphasizes that bullfighting is merely the backbone for a larger story, a claim borne out by the play itself. More worrying is a bit of over-plotting on Hurst-Mendoza’s part. In particular, the play climaxes with a twist regarding the nature of Elena and Tanok’s friendship that one could possibly see as gratuitous, especially given the brusque way the play ends, suggesting a playwright ill-prepared to actually deal with its dark implications.

That misstep aside, Torera is still worth seeing, especially given Tatiana Pandiani’s energetic and imaginative direction. Her most striking touch is the way she uses two dancers, Christian Jesús Galvis and Andrea Soto, to perform numbers choreographed by Pandiani during scene transitions that not only comment on onstage action, but infuse the whole production with a culturally celebratory flavor.

But Pandiani’s direction impresses in other, smaller ways. Though the play jumps around between four different years, Rodrigo Muñoz’s costume design is so detailed that we instinctively grasp when an ellipsis in time has occurred. Yuki Nakase Link’s lighting design is similarly fluid in the way it switches between colorfully expressionistic hues in the scene/dance transitions and naturalistic lights elsewhere. And scenic designer Emmie Finckel’s ornate vine-laden backdrop makes for a sharp contrast to the mortal danger and brutality inherent in bullfighting.

But Torera might have been less emotionally affecting if not for the cast’s vivid performances. Hurst radiates maternal concern as Pastora, Cordova a sternness occasionally tinged with warmth as Don Rafael. Machado’s sensitivity adds tantalizing hints of ambivalence to Tanok, suggesting a character who may not be as passionate about bullfighting as he feels he ought to be. There is, of course, no such ambivalence to Guillén’s performance as Elena, a fully dimensional and ultimately moving portrait of a woman who instinctively knows her destiny and struggles to break free from interpersonal and societal shackles in order to fully realize herself. Whatever one may think of bullfighting as a sport, she makes a heroine worth rooting for.