Review: 'An altogether satisfying and engaging performance'

Artwork by Analee Fuentes

Check out the review of "¡Viva La Revolución!" from the Willamette Week:

Midway through Miracle Theatre’s original, bilingual Day of the Dead celebration, the characters read aloud a manifesto proclaiming their revolutionary aims. Ludovico, the master of a Mexican hacienda, reads first, and the rest of the cast repeats each line. This call-and-response evokes the so-called “people’s mic” of the Occupy Wall Street protests, where the ban on sound amplification has led demonstrators to devise a novel communication strategy: After someone speaks, others shout back the same words. But ¡Viva la Revolución!, set during the Mexican Revolution, does not only draw inspiration from the Occupy protests—the Arab Spring also echoes through the production, which pays tribute to activist women from both the past and the present. Part history lesson, part song-and-dance revue, part idealistic call to arms, the show occasionally turns melodramatic or contrived, but a zippy pace and a spunky, likable ensemble make for an altogether satisfying and engaging performance.