La Divina Caricatura

Co-presenters St. Ann’s Warehouse and La MaMa, and producers piece by piece productions, Mabou Mines and Dovetail Productions–all ardent and longtime supporters of Lee Breuer, the "bad boy of avant-garde theater" (Village Voice)–unite for Breuer’s epic magnum opus La Divina Caricatura. The mixed-media pop-opera completes Breuer’s Animations series and draws on material that stretches all the way back to Breuer’s doo-wop opera Sister Suzie Cinema, first conceived as a poem in 1975.

At the center of La Divina Caricatura is an unlikely lead character: a dog named Rose, who is making a Dantean pilgrimage to love and, hopefully, Paradiso. Lincoln Schleifer’s music and arrangements incorporate the work of Bob Telson and John Margolis and covers a stunning array of styles, from 1950s doo-wop and 1960s soul to Argentinian tango, raga, reggae, rap, Gregorian chant and French folk tunes. The Brooklyn Rail has said, "The staging of La Divina Caricatura closely reflects the traditional performance of Bunraku puppetry. However, Divina is directed as an animated, epic movie, based on the narrative structure of Monzaemon’s Bunraku plays, which in turn closely mirror the structure of feature films."