Musical ‘Caderas’ Lacks Sensuality

The wonderful beat and melodies supplied by Afro-Cuban singer-percussionist Lazaro Galarraga cannot instill life into “Caderas,” a lackluster adaptation of Langston Hughes’ short story “Rejuvenation Through Joy.” Awkwardly staged and generally stilted, Joe Teisan and Lenore Marquez’s musical, presented by LA Diversified Theater Group at Los Angeles Theatre Center’s Theatre 2, lives only when in full song. And then it is a joy only for the ears, not the eyes.

Caderas is Spanish for hips, and that is where joy flows--or at least, that’s the hokum that Eugene (William Marquez) and Sol (Valente Rodriquez) are spreading to their wealthy Park Avenue society patsies in the 1930s. Liberate your hips and learn how to dance with your more sexual self and, maybe, loosen up your libido. Eugene corrupts his sister Luna’s (Ivonne Coll alternating with Anita Morales) concept of a “colony of joy” in hopes of making a tidy sum. With the reluctant help of a scholar on folklore, Hortensia (Maggie Palomo), he hypes the hips, falls in true love and finds the meaning of joy.

Unfortunately, the seductive sounds aren’t answered by the players onstage. The petty jealousies, the surprise pregnancy and the developing of true love are so obvious (mostly because the characters are underdeveloped) that the only surprise is how limply this drags on.

Director Dan Shor hasn’t quite fleshed out the characters and doesn’t give us the throbbing, sensual atmosphere that Galarraga’s music hints at.

*

* “Caderas,” Los Angeles Theatre Center, Theatre 2, 514 S. Spring St. Tonight-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Ends Sunday. $15-$20. (213) 485-1681. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.