The 24th International Hispanic Theatre Festival ended on a decidedly Cuban note and with mixed results. The Company of the Angels' Días y Flores (Days and Flowers) lacked a narrative hook clear enough to prop up its angry, angst-ridden protagonist. And despite two particularly strong performances, Raquel Carrió's adaptation of Virgilio Piñera's Aire Frio (Cold Air) also suffered from narrative woes.

Oliver Mayer's Días y Flores begins with a fabulous piece of cross-cultural kitsch: Farruco (performed by Mayer), a Cuban American, imports home-cooked food from Mexico to the Lower East Side's struggling immigrant population. Why would they fork out 45 bucks to eat mom's home-cooked tripe when there's a Mexican restaurant on every corner? ``It's just different,'' Farruco's humble deliveryman Pantys (yes, as in Panties) opines. He should know. Pantys' mother sends him women's underwear from Mexico. He's a hermaphrodite.

What ensues between the bigoted Cuban American and his soft-spoken, subservient employee is engaging, but the play's other drama is less convincing.

Besides her ill-fated name, something's perturbing Farruco's sister, Sherezad (Marlene Forte), to the point of rage. Is it the string of failed relationships, her trauma for having cracked under pressure as a child prodigy, or the ever-elusive Havana she left when she was two? Without a clear source, Sherezad's acute suffering is hard to relate to. Likewise, her hook-up with the much younger, park-dwelling troubadour, Silvio (Miguel Angel Caballero) seems far fetched.

Mayer's narrative is flawed, but he does make some astute and humorous cultural observations.

Unfortunately, Días is marred by a lack of careful direction by Luis Alfaro.

Forte's emotional tone, for the most part, goes unchecked, and her accent vacillates between neutral and New York City. Except Xavi Moreno, this troupe's accents are all over the place.

It turns out the playwright was a late subsitute for the actor originally slated for the role of Farruco. Mayer makes his delivery in a monotone.

Xavi Moreno is the only member of this crew who feels perfectly cast. He renders Pantys' culture and character to hilarious and heartbreaking effect.

`AIRE FRIO'

In Virgilio Piñera's Aire Frio, the sun sets and rises, political systems reinvent themselves, but the people who must eke out a living in the oppressive tropical heat stay the same.

Enter the Romaguera family: an elderly mother and father, three grown sons and a seamstress daughter who has sacrificed her shot at marriage by staying at home and working to support her parents. The latter, Luz Marina (Marilyn Romero) is the main focus of the play.

Raquel Carrió's adaptation of Piñera's classic is conceptually interesting. The Cuban dramaturge collapsed three acts into one, structuring the play around a series of flashbacks narrated from Luz Marina's point of view.

Part of Carrio's goal is accomplished -- we see the family through the perspective of Luz Marina, which makes her character compelling. We laugh at her unbridled sarcasm and feel her frustration. But that leaves five other actors who, with the exception of Jorge Luis Alvarez's Oscar, often feel like place markers in Luz Mariana's memory. While the talented Gerardo Riverón and Ana Viña do elicit laughs from the audience, their characters often feel unreachable and distant.

Aire Frio doesn't have a point per se. Its daily grind of complaints and laments are its end; however, Carrió's flashbacks set up unintended expectations that go unanswered.

Mario Ernesto Sanchez's direction mostly hits its mark with the surreal presence of Oscar, (an inspired performance by Alvarez), the youngest son and the play's poetic soul. His achingly slow, fluid movements highlight the young writer's separation from mainstream culture and family, which makes Oscar's emotional connection with Luz Marina all the more poignant.

As her children cheer her on for having stayed married to their philandering father for 50 years, Ana Viña's world-weary, wry smirk confirms that the success of an institution cannot be solely determined by its longevity.

That's true for governments, marriages and festivals. The International Hispanic Theater Festival will celebrate its 25th anniversary next year, and it looks like local government's support for the arts may be completely cut by then. This institution will survive, but what is most laudable is that it continues to offer local theatergoers thought-provoking, aesthetically diverse, first-rate theater from around the world.

That's something to celebrate.

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