Becoming Part of the Family in 'Canciones'
The site-specific production in a Brooklyn home blurs the line between audience and guest.
Hannah and I walked down a quiet street in Brooklyn lined with family homes with front yards. I checked the address two, three times before we saw a tent lined with papel picado and realized we had found the box office of our show: in front of a family home in Flatbush.
We’d reached “Canciones,” a site-specific play that takes place inside of a Brooklyn home. Outside under the tent, we were given covers for our shoes and pins that indicated that we were OK with interacting with the actors.
Those interactions began before we walked up the short flight of stairs into the home. Instead, a nervous and flustered woman approached us. She introduced herself as Kati (Sara Ornelas) and asked for advice on an email she’d written. I read a draft from her phone about negotiating a new price for an acquisition; she was selling a charro (a mariachi suit) to a museum and wanted to sell it for 15% more.
She thanked us and we were on our way up the stairs and into the warm, welcoming home with 30 or so audience members and seven actors. It felt like walking into a family party when you’re a plus one: overwhelmed with new faces, places, people.
Yet the actors took this in stride, ushering groups of us into various parts of the home. Hannah and I were quickly split from our friends, invited to check out the downstairs where a man playing guitar introduced himself as Ricky (Sammy Rivas). He indulged us in trying to play some Harry Styles and asked us to join him with some instruments.
On the wall behind him, he pointed out pictures of his family, including a famous charro his grandfather wore. It felt like picking up heavily and conveniently dropped clues: this charro was going to be important to this play’s story.
We were then told it was time to gather upstairs, where the home came alive with the first group song of the night. I stood by the corner of the living room while the entire family began singing in gorgeous, sweeping harmonies, backtracked with their own guitars and violins. The music flowed in just as we all had into the home: a natural family pastime.
Yet it’s not a family gathering without the drama. Soon, Kati, the woman we had met outside, entered and the seeds of tension bubbled up. The show’s main drama was laid out before us: Kati, visting from out of town, wants to sell the family’s charro. Her older sister, Ely (Cristina Contreras), who lives in the home with her husband, daughter, and their mother, does not approve.
With the main tension afoot, “Canciones” allowed us to get deeper depending on where we were in the house and who we were talking to. Now that the exposition was out of the way, I enjoyed being on the outskirts of the party, hearing the perhiperhal details. We ventured out to the patio for a drink with Ricky and his sister-in-law, Jenn (EJ Zimmerman). Others stayed in the living room to chat, while some were put to work in the kitchen to make tamales.
Yes, real tamales. “Canciones” does not have an intermission, but it does have a mid-show shift to eating an actual meal with the family that’s performing around you. Maestra, the mother of the household, apologized about her daughters’ constant fighting while I put more hot sauce on my chicken tamale.
But we weren’t just immersed with the actors; the show encourages interacting with everyone in the house, including other audience members. We picked questions from a bowl on the table and learned about everyone’s favorite part of New York, then shared other secrets we’d learned about the family in the different rooms. We all hadn’t gotten every detail, but the main dynamic was still clear: the selling of the charro was tearing these two sisters apart.
“Canciones” does a beautiful job of quite literally bringing us into a home and making us feel like we’re friends of this family. It’s hard to make any audience and actor interaction feel natural, but these actors are true to their cause, and the show’s plot gives us enough to anchor on and react to. We gasped along with the actors during the low blows of the fights, felt the awkwardness in the moments after a family screaming match.
Yet I felt most at home in the music; not that I knew the songs, nor the words. This cast is giving us Broadway-level performances, aching cries of vocals and powerful ballads, just inches away from our seats on their couches and kitchen chairs. There’s no fourth wall to be broken, because we’re inhabiting the space just as they are.
That’s why they called it immersive theater, I suppose: to feel so embedded, in another family’s drama, music, and world. How lucky were we to be invited to their home.
How to See “Canciones”
“Canciones” runs until May 24th.
How I found out about it/How I got tickets: I got a press invite that completely intrigued me; I was happy to hop on the immersive site-specific theater trend, especially when my wonderful food-reviewing friend Hannah agreed to join me for dinner and a show.
How to get cheap(er) tickets: Tickets are currently available for $35, which for the price of a ticket and a meal is a steal in New York these days.
Looking for food reviews and musing? Subscribe to Hannah’s substack here!
What Else I’ve Seen
Proof
“Proof” holds a soft spot in my heart as one of the shows I had to read and perform in college, so I was delighted (re: more than happy to take a day of PTO to see a matinee) that Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle were taking on this semi-modern classic. “Proof” holds up decently well, telling the story of a daughter of a mentally ill math professor. The show’s questions about mental illness, inheritance, and proving yourself (pun intended) make new meaning with a Black family at the center.
One of my favorite moments was during intermission, where I gushed with my seat mates about Kara Young, who plays Edebiri’s older sister. “When she comes on stage, no matter what it is, you know it’s about to be good,” said the older woman next to me. Agreed.
The Rocky Horror Show
One of my favorite parts of theater is experiencing it with other people who are just excited about it. That made “The Rocky Horror Show” a true delight. Audience members were abuzz before the curtain went up, dressed up in costume and already humming their way long.
The show played with the audience’s knowledge to an extent—the movie’s “call-out” culture, where audience members shout during certain parts of the dialogue, has been a point of contention during the run. The night I saw it, I felt the production played to this just enough: there were signs encouraging us to be respectful and a pre-show reminder, then moments where the actors were quiet to let the call-out happen.
Overall, this revival is glitzy and sexy and just a lot of fun. It helps that they’ve got a stacked cast: Luke Evans, Rachel Dratch, Amber Gray, and Stephanie Hsu were some of my favorites (and three of those four now have Tony nominations for their roles!). Complete with luxurious set and costume design (dots and David I. Reynoso, respectively), it makes for a good night at the theater.
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My Sister Performing Very Well
My very talented sister Tess is wrapping up her first year at Circle in the Square theater school, which means I got to see her perform on Broadway this week (well, the stage on Monday while “Just in Time” was not performing). Here’s to manifesting the day when I have a conflict of interest voting for the Tonys when she’s nominated.
Lmaoooo I really wasn’t expecting this