The Wedding March<\/a> is a bit of a patchwork but engaging from word one, thanks to a trio of polished actors and the celestial assistance of a string quartet sequestered behind a cloud-dotted sky-blue scrim provided by set designer Omayra Garriga Casiano.<\/p>\nThe first element to catch the eye is a green tower of small video screens displaying black-and-white portraits\u2014a family tree alluded to in the text as \u201cThe Tree of Life.\u201d Upstage right, a rocking chair awaits, auguring the arrival of a storyteller of some sort\u2014an elder with lore to hand down, most likely. Instead, we get young and vibrant Jenyvette Vega, who\u2019s too busy enacting folk tales and wisps of memoir ever to settle in. Costumed by Eliana Yost like a campesina in long, belt-cinched culottes and a lace blouse, Mujer (\u201cWoman\u201d) could be a time traveler from any era and she will explore \u00a0a few.<\/p>\n
When the photo lowest on the tree lights up, Mujer introduces her parents, who \u201clook like children\u201d: her mother, two weeks shy of fifteen, \u201chas a slightly stunned expression.\u201d Young Mujer wouldn\u2019t get to know her father (\u201cthis solemn stranger\u201d) until age three. With few other options on the impoverished island, he joined the Navy in 1951 to support his family.<\/p>\n
The script skips to the mid-\u201860s: high school. Woman\u2019s Father (Fernando Contreras, filling in various roles as \u201cMan\u201d) briefly takes over as narrator, lamenting the fact that she has \u201cin the great tradition of tragic romance, chosen to love a boy who is totally out of her reach.\u201d Rendered starry-eyed by a fleeting kiss bestowed by the object of her adoration (Fernando Contreras as \u201cHombre\u201d), she eventually comes down to earth, reassessing the moment as a mere \u201ctrophy for his ego.\u201d She chafes against a culture in which \u201can adolescent girl was watched every minute\u2026as if you carried some kind of time-bomb in your body.\u201d<\/p>\n
So far, relatively generic. It\u2019s in the second half of the program that the script sparks to life. Mujer edges into a series of reminiscences and folk tales that really crackle.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Fernando-Contreras-and-Jenyvette-Vega-in-Pregones-PRTTs-THE-WEDDING-MARCH-photo-by-Krystal-Pagan-1.j.jpeg\" "\\"Fernando")
Fernando Contreras and Jenyvette Vega star in the Pregones\/PRTT production of The Wedding March, directed by Rosal Col\u00f3n, at the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater.
(\u00a9 Krystal Paga\u0301n)<\/p>\n
The first involves a turn in the sacred Rio Rojo reserved for young women, two of whom fall in love\u2014pretty adventurous material for three decades ago, and the story turns out to have a decidedly contemporary twist. Vega, a strong singer, accompanies the girls\u2019 tryst with a lovely traditional borinque\u00f1o ballad, \u201cUn cielo azul\u201d (songs aside, the play is performed 99% in English, with a side panel showing the text in Spanish).<\/p>\n
The following section, starting with \u201cHab\u00eda una vez\u201d (\u201cOnce upon a time\u201d), introduces a classic Puerto Rican cuento reminiscent of the Brothers Grimm. Folk heroine Mar\u00eda Sabida (Vega) sets out to bring down a murderous local marauder (I could swear that Gabriel Leyva, as \u201cLadron,\u201d starts out subtly channeling Trump). Gaining the outlaw\u2019s trust, she not only triumphs but tames him, via trickery. \u201cIt\u2019s better to conquer than to kill,\u201d Maria observes, giving her breasts a proud hoist.<\/p>\n
This moment of smart female supremacy makes for an interesting segue to a section examining how young country girls can fall for false suitors, swallowing their lies right up to an empty altar. The story of \u201cMar\u00eda La Loca,\u201d rendered permanently addled, is a heartbreaker: Though she has \u201cthe thick body and wrinkled face of an old woman,\u201d she skips about town peddling pasteles \u201clike a grotesque Little Red Riding Hood.\u201d The moral: She \u201callowed love to defeat her.\u201d<\/p>\n
So let that be a lesson. The brief (65-minute) program would make good family fare for adolescents on up, despite (or even because of) this haunting, cautionary finale. There\u2019s a reason the viejas spent their relatively quiet afternoons\u2014men at work, boys busy at sports\u2014passing down stories whose warnings still hold water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gabriel Leyva, Jenyvette Vega, and Fernando Contreras appear in the Pregones\/PRTT production of The Wedding March, directed by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-204878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Gabriel-Leyva-Jenyvette-Vega-and-Fernando-Contreras-in-Pregones-PRTTs-THE-WEDDING-MARCH-photo-by-Kry.webp\" "\\"Gabriel")
Gabriel Leyva, Jenyvette Vega, and Fernando Contreras appear in the Pregones\/PRTT production of The Wedding March, directed by Rosal Col\u00f3n, at the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater.