In Bess Wohl’s Barcelona,, now in its West Coast premiere at the Geffen after a successful run in New York, Irene (Betty Gilpin), an American tourist, and Manuel (Carlos Leal), a native Spaniard, meet at a tapas bar in Barcelona and hit it off, strongly enough that she agrees to go back to his place with him. The two-character play begins when they step in the door, rip off their clothes and begin to make brief but frantic love. Ecstasy, however, is quickly followed by depression when the slightly tipsy Irene realizes what she has done: ended up in a dark, dreary loft with a man she scarcely knows. Not only that, Manuel admits that he hates Americans, loathes them. Wohl plays with the audience’s expectations here, but instead of exploiting the danger and turning Barcelona into a melodrama, she proceeds down a different narrative track, investigating character, comedy, and politics as she goes. It’s quite a skillful trick on her part, turning stereotypes into real flesh-and-blood people. As played masterfully by Gilpin (Dr. Carrie Roman on “Nurse Jackie”), Irene is revealed to be a lot more than just a drunken, ditzy matron who makes outrageously funny remarks. There is grit and courage in her as well—and enough intellect and honesty to face up to her many failings and flaws (such as being willing to screw Manuel a week before getting married to a fellow-American here in Barcelona). Irene may be mixed up, she may be prone to endless nervous tics and twitches, but she isn’t afraid to take on Manuel’s anti-Americanism, challenge it as best she can. Manuel is equally complex. Leal (TNT’s “The Last Ship”), we learn in increments as the action unfolds, has a powerful personal reason to hate America, one that derives from the invasion of Iraq. To protest what they deemed to be a cynical, imperialist act, radical Muslims blew up a Spanish train, killing Manuel’s daughter. The Barcelona loft, which overlooks Sagrada Familia, the famed Gaudi cathedral, belongs to Manuel’s late daughter, but the building is about to be pulverized by a wrecking ball, to make way for gentrification. So the death that is prefigured in the opening scene of the play takes on a different, deeper dimension later on. This revelation is just one of many in this clever, compelling and altogether remarkable love story.
