By Marcia Blondin***Performers Alejandra Matus (Ale) and her partner Dabit Azofeifa, the Costa Rican couple who are Tromba Vetusta, were asked by Act2PV’s Entertainment Director, David Sabella, to come up with a new show combining their skills in playing musical instruments, singing, dancing, mime and juggling—yep, they are both clowns in the Cirque du Soleil tradition—and wrap those attributes around a base of sensuality. Their c
ostumes for this show were created by Neothy Lavender, a young designer who proudly and justifiably struts his own stuff. Ale and Dabit could have been court jesters from long ago and far away with just the right amount of glitter and fringe.
The result is Saturnalia, a show that unfolds layer by layer in small vignettes: one of these fine actors sets a scene wildly different from the preceding one and exits the stage, leaving it to the other to pick up the pieces and play with them.
In one scenario, Dabit tries on a sportcoat that is obviously too big for him and wears it inside out and upside down, getting tangled in the fabric, and finally putting it back on the hangar and leaving the stage, seemingly in anger, fear and/or, frustration. Sometime later, Ale teasing us, eases her elbow-length glove off one hand using her teeth, and approaches the coat hanging on stage. She buries her face in the lapels, and her one red-gloved arm slips inside and appears at the end of the coat sleeve. The gloved 
hand slowly strokes her face and shoulders, pulls her in closer, and creeps down her other arm as the light on the stage dims. She snuggles dreamily into the coat as she would her lover. It was voyeuristic, strangely erotic and extraordinary—but being out of the ordinary is something the couple thrive on.
Dabit uses his lithe and muscular body in a strip tease, unlike anything you will see anywhere ever. Imagine he is balancing with his feet on a board that is sitting on a round piece of PVC on top of a cocktail table two feet off the stage floor. And now watch him balance and remove his bloomers without crashing down. And then the tricks that followed with two hula hoops while balancing on the same teeter-y board! There were hat tricks that had nothing to do with hockey, and if you immediately think of Lawrence Welk, if someone says the word “accordion,” you have never seen Dabit play one.
These are mere parts of Saturnalia. There’s more to enjoy at matinees every Friday at the Casa Karma Red Room at Act2PV, at 5 PM.
