Widows

Photo/Colin D. Young

Widows is a political play that digs remarkably deep, showing the stubbornness, futility, fearfulness, and courage of passive resistance -- and of military governance. Ariel Dorfman's script is best when it wells up into a rapids of sound that could smash even the sturdiest of rocks on the shore, but director Hal Brooks has done a solid job throughout, confining the action to a raft of a stage that, while occasionally tilting, is never in danger of sinking. Of particular note is the paradoxical tone of the play -- a loss even in victory, a victory even in a loss -- that has Sofia Fuentes (the strong Ching Valdes-Aran) rebelling by waiting (because she cannot bear to wait any more) and her nemesis, the good-intentioned but naive Captain (the excellently tormented Mark Alhadeff) trying to avoid using the force that he knows will only weaken them all.

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