Posted on Fri, Jul. 11, 2008

The XXIII International Hispanic Theatre Festival is up and running through the end of July at the Carnival Studio Theater in the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Prometeo's space on Miami Dade College's Wolfson campus and several other locations throughout Miami-Dade County.

This year's festival pays tribute to the country where Hispanic theater was born. So it was only right that a Spanish company -- Barcelona's Octubre Teatral -- was selected to give the festival's opening performances. That choice was not only right, but moving, impressive and (at several points) stunning.

El llanto, which the company premiered in Spain last fall, is art inspired by poet Federico García Lorca's Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías. The great, poetic lament for Lorca's friend, a bullfighter killed in the ring, carries within it the rhythms of flamenco and of the form's jondo, or deep songs.

And so the collaborative artists of Octubre Teatral, under the direction of Jaume Villanueva, have drawn from that art form in creating their piece.

Running about an hour and 20 minutes, El llanto features Juana García, ''la gitana catalana,'' as the singer; Frederic Gómez as the bull; Nacho Blanco as Ignacio, the bullfighter; and pianist Rafael Plana, who delivers haunting versions of Orientale, Andaluza and the interlude from Goyescas by Catalonian composer Enric Granados and the rhythms of the cajón (the box drum) in pounding counterpoint to the actors' brilliant footwork.

Though El llanto is driven by mood, imagery and its traditional elements, there's no denying the fact that García is singing Lorca's words in Spanish. So those with rudimentary or no understanding of Spanish did miss out on that powerful aspect of the piece during Octubre Teatral's three Carnival Studio Theater performances. Yet, though language-driven productions are a dicier experience for those who aren't bilingual (which is why some festival shows offer projected supertitles), El llanto conveyed enough of its story of friendship, the combat of the bullring and the tragedy of an early death to touch anyone watching.

From its intertwined music to the graceful yet potent faceoffs between Gómez and Blanco, El llanto is a thing of rich, dark beauty. Perhaps the most astonishing moment occurs when Gómez raises Blanco, lying ''dead'' in his bullfighter's traje de luces, from the unseen bloodied sand of the ring and moves his friend's body in a dance, as if to deny death's finality. Brilliant.

Christine Dolen is The Miami Herald's theater critic.