A valiant attempt on the part of the actors, Musas imagines an encounter between painter Frida Kahlo and poet Sylvia Plath (Mónica Steuer) as they slog through the most agonizing moments of their lives. In the course of 90 minutes, the audience bears witness to electroshock therapy, a miscarriage, infidelity and physical distress; most significantly, Frida and Sylvia acknowledge that they are musas, giving everything of themselves to inspire husbands—artist Diego Rivera and poet Ted Hughes, respectively—who give them little but hurt in return. (The men do not appear in the show but are ever-present nonetheless.) Rebeca Alemán emits a delightful energy as Frida, and Mónica Steuer handles Plath’s hysterics with aplomb, but the pair struggles against the choppy flow of Néstor Caballero’s script; several scenes go on too long, as when Frida screams in pain—“Diego, morphine!”—and writhes on a table, face and neck tight, for what seems like at least 10 minutes. In the end, Frida and Sylvia find comfort with each other in a kind of heaven, free of men and pain, as the audience finds relief in leaving their litany of tortured moments.—Jaime Brockway
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