If Juan Rulfo’s magic realist novel Pedro Páramo has the feel of a séance, then so too does this music-theatre version by Mexico’s Pulpo Arts. Tightly packed in on three sides, a shot of mezcal in our hands, we gather closely around a stage only just big enough for the eight performers and their giant drums, plus accordion, fiddle, trumpet and piano. The story is less acted than spirited out of the ether.
That story concerns Juan Preciado (Stephano Morales), whose deathbed promise to his mother is to find his estranged father, Pedro. To do that, he must venture into the land of the dead and the ghost town of Comala. “Some towns just reek of misery,” someone says about a place that is “full of those who died and don’t know how to leave”.
