Fort Worth, 10.26.2024

As much as Fort Worth has grown, and as much arts activity as it sustains, it's still a finite universe when it comes to audiences, and sometimes worthy offerings get lost in the shuffle. Thus, on a Halloween weekend night when Panther City theatergoers had choices that included Stage West's What the Constitution Means to Me, Hip Pocket's Metamorphosis, and Scene Shop's Renfield, only a handful of us were on hand for the first weekend of Artes de la Rosa's Cuentos Fantasticos, Vol. 2.

Cuentos Fantasticos is the brainchild of Rob Bosquez, a prodigiously talented writer-actor-director-educator who's been leaving his mark on stages here for a couple of decades now. He freely admits that the seven stand-alone monologues that comprise the evening are influenced by Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, and Rod Serling, but because Rob's the kind of artist he is, the texts are shaped by the character driven, human scale side of those creators of fantastical and horrifying worlds. 

Rob opened the evening by asking audience members to share fantastic and spooky experiences they've had, after alluding to the Rose Marine Theater's illustrious history, which includes some supernatural encounters. A woman responded with a tale of her musician uncles, who were shamed one night by another relative who poured out their liquor, which formed the shape of a demon.

The staging was spare, with creative lighting design by Jonathan Gonzalez that placed the focus on the text and the performers. In Video Games, the opening vignette, Alex Mackenzie played a character who would surely resonate for any '80s Fort Worth kid -- a gamer who scores a triumph against a machine in the arcade at the miniature golf place off I-35. Moon Beach is a tale of a New Year's Eve at the beach that goes horribly wrong for a character played with understated intimacy by Fredy Quiroga. Tio Moon's Book of Fantastical Foods is an early highlight, with Christiann Rogers as the guardian of an ancestral secret. The wistful reminiscence Kiteflyer, with Lauren Moreau Riley as a child who grows up to receive a visitation from the past, was followed by a short intermission.

Slither Through the Green starts off as a mundane suburban vignette before Nicholas Zebrun's householder reveals some darker dimensions to his family's history. The madwoman's narrative Dogcatcher is a tour de force for the amazing Jozy Camp, a performer of riveting physicality and tremendous emotional range. Perhaps the most affecting of the monologues with the fitting closer: The Out There, the narrative of a biracial orphan (Liam Markland) torn between the different parts of his identity, on a quest to find family. It was a haunting (in more ways than one) conclusion to an evening of tales imbued with soul and spirit: a different kind of Halloween play.

If you missed Cuentos Fantasticos, Vol. 2 this weekend, it runs again on November 1 and 2 at the historic Rose Marine Theater, a small gem on the Northside. You owe it to yourself.