By interweaving three stories from B. Traven about life in an imaginary Mexican village, Tottering Bipeds constructed a complex drama, structured with the sort of sub-plots and hidden agendas often lacking in physical / visual theatre.
Tequila flowed into the audience and the play started with an enormous amount of energy and promise. Each man had one desire to perfect their lives. In a life of poverty and hard work, these were simple things: one wanted a wife, another had the only digital watch in the village and inevitably lost it; Macario, the central figure, wanted a whole turkey to himself. However, to forestall his own demise he shared the meat with Death. His reward was bitter sweet.
Sadly, in attempting to create an atmosphere of Central America, where time passes slowly and everybody is superstitious, the play got bogged down. The simplicity of the individual stories was not able to sustain 1 hour 45 minutes, and despite their intentions, structurally it was very uneven. Too much time was spent with irrelevant words and details which tended to slow the action down rather than enrich it.
The performances of the eponymous Macario and his wife drew the audience in with great charm and simplicity, their tenderness and tragedy conveyed brilliantly by Url Roodner and Clarissa Malherios. I felt the whole play needed the same sentiment.