Teatro Paraguas’s Production of Robert F. Benjamin’s Parted Waters

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In a telephone interview with Robert Benjamin on January 20, 2010, I talked with the Los Alamos resident and retired experimental physicist who has had thirteen one-act plays and short theatrical pieces produced (including a few in the Santa Fe Playhouse’s “Bench Warmer” series) as well as having his two full-length plays—PW and Time Enough--performed.

The genesis of PW started “in comforting the sick.”  Robert visited his father often in Phoenix where the elder Benjamin was experiencing a two-year dying process.  Robert’s father suggested to his son to have the Producing Director of the Arizona Jewish Theatre Company Janet Arnold look at Robert’s Time Enough, a play about aging, loss, and acceptance that mirrors, in part, the life stages of grieving as reflected in the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.  Arnold found the play interesting and effective.  However, she needed a different play for her audience, and she suggested the subject of Crypto-Judaism to Robert.  PW is the result of a commission by Arnold’s Phoenix-based company.

In PW, Robert Benjamin employs the work of Seth Kunin (author of Juggling Identities) in discussing how people relate to religion and, more specifically, to Judaism.  Kunin argues that the theological argument is embedded in four distinct ways in individuals: in blood lines (genealogy), in what one feels (identity), in rituals and traditions, and in religious beliefs (for example, attitudes about God and an after-life).  Reynaldo is the patriarch of the family who is a viejo and mayordomo of the local acequia; his son Javier is an assimilationist who believes that the traditional ways are passé; and his grandson Miguel is a college-educated budding politician who has a much broader and inclusive world view and a more active engagement with contemporary society than either his father or grandfather.  His campaign manager Rachel Goldstein is the embodiment of his grandfather’s indirect transmission of Miguel’s unknown history.   She is Miguel’s past and future.  He is open, curious, and guileless while his elders are more passive, secretive, and guarded.  Yet the author composes a drama with no villains: “Each character is trying to do what he believes is best for the family…It is the unfortunate manner in which the secret is revealed that leads to the literal blows that occur among the characters….I wanted to present the connection between identity and violence.”

PW documents the conflicts that inevitably follow from such major differences.  It is only the universal healing powers of love that can counter the complex and unfathomable recesses of the human heart (and soul) and that can reconcile such divides.  This is the task Robert Benjamin sets for himself and his audience in PW.  He succeeds in creating a very intimate play that touches on very human truths:  “[I see PW] as a universal struggle for identity in a multi-generational family undergoing the transitions of contemporary life.”

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Parted Waters is directed by Fran Martone and includes a cast of Argos MacCallum (Reynaldo), Tom Romero (Javier), Angelo Jaramillo (Miguel), and Lisa Friedland (Rachel).  Robert Benjamin is “very impressed with Fran’s direction” and adds kudos for the professionalism and skill of the Scenic Designer Tom Martone and Lighting Designer Skip Rapoport.

In a telephone interview on January 26, 2010, with TP Artistic Director Argos MacCallum, he revealed an interesting observation about PW as an actor:  “All the characters are correct; there views are all equally valid….[In typical American fashion], PW ends in an open-ended way.”  Argos also singled out Fran Martone’s direction which focuses not only on “the cultural bonds among the characters but also the instinctual blood ties (connections of love) that are pulling on the characters.”

In a final comment on his play, Robert Benjamin reveals the “home-grown nature” of PW:  “Argos MacCallum and Angelo Jaramillo have been associated with the play for two years, including staged readings at the Los Alamos Little Theater and Teatro Paraguas Studio.  This is a true piece of [collaborative literature] with many contributors, including past audience members,”

For performance schedules, ticket prices, and reservations, phone (505) 424-1601 or go to www.teatroparaguas.org.