It was love at first read for Alida Holguin Wilson-Gunn.
She is directing the world premiere of “The Hall of Final Ruin” at Something Something Theatre Company.
“I fell in love with the play immediately,” she says. “I started to see pictures of how it would be staged. I was excited to get my teeth into it.”
The Kelly McBurnette-Andronicos play, peppered with dark humor and eccentric characters, was inspired by the real-life character Gertrudis Maria Barceló. Known as La Tules, she was a wealthy woman who ran a gambling house in the New Mexico territory during the U.S.-Mexican War.
In the play, La Tules is a strong woman, wildly independent for her time, and she wields influence around the territory (which pretty much describes who she was in life).
She has two almost-grown grandchildren, one of whom she is teaching the intricacies of monte, the card game that has made her so wealthy.
Death is lurking around La Tules’ door when the play opens. We soon discover her time is approaching. And the death-cart driver who is waiting for her to take her last breath says she’s got low marks in pride. That could keep her from having a smooth passage through the pearly gates.
La Tules doesn’t fight that driver. But she gets a bit more time to arrange for the funeral and burial she wants, to make sure her grandchildren are equipped with what they need to go on without her, and to try to up those marks in pride.
“What I love most is it is really a story about family dynamics, about love and death and fear of death and the fear that your children won’t be taken care of,” says Wilson-Gunn.
Wilson-Gunn thinks the play has something to say to all of us.
“I hope audiences will be struck by the feelings of family,” Wilson-Gunn says. “At the pain and struggles and excitement — all those things happen in every single family. I hope they will see themselves in the characters and come away thinking about their own family dynamics. I want them to remember that we all have moments of weakness and that we are reminded that in the end, forgiveness is possible.”
