Float like a butterfly

Adapted from Julia Alvarez’s novel of the same name, Caridad Svich’s play In the Time of the Butterflies is a fictionalized account of the lives of the very real Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic. The four women—who called themselves las Mariposas (“the butterflies”)—were active in the opposition to the United States-supported dictator Rafael Trujillo, and three of them were eventually murdered on Trujillo’s orders.

Under the direction of Teatro Nagual’s executive director, Richard Falcon, In the Time of the Butterflies takes on a dreamlike quality. Flashbacks, memories and ghostly visitations lead the elderly surviving sister, Dedé (Irene Velasquez) to tell a young Dominican-American writer (Lyra Dominguez, who also plays the younger version of Dedé) the story of her sisters and life under Trujillo’s regime.

The male roles—including lovers, husbands, the women’s father, a contemporary deejay, the driver and Trujillo himself—are all played by Ruben Oriol-Rivera, who handles the multitude of voices well. As Patria, the eldest sister, Gladys Imperio-Acosta exudes the heartbreak of a religious woman forced to revolution by the violence she witnesses.

The firebrand, Minerva, is played by Jasmine Nunez-Gonzalez, while the youngest sister, Maria Teresa, is played by Catalina Serrano. These two have the most physically demanding roles, as they age from schoolgirls to women approaching middle age, moving from childhood play through idealistic young adulthood, through the imprisonment, torture and final realism of political activists.

The sisters have a palpable chemistry, and Velasquez shows us an older woman carrying the weight of the past on her shoulders. But the standout performance is certainly Lyra Dominguez, both as the heartbreakingly vulnerable young Dedé and as the curious American seeking to understand her roots. She swings between the roles with grace and with a definite change in her manner that lets the audience see the difference between the two women.