Anybody who has lived in a multilingual household knows that sometimes your brain decides to finish a sentence in a language that’s different from the one it started in. Sometimes it switches a single word, pero you never know until it comes out, and even then you may not notice because it happens so often. The world premiere of BULL: a love story, the last show in this inaugural season of the Paramount’s Bold series, captures this perfectly with a fully bilingual cast bouncing between English and Spanish. Opening weekend was perfectly timed for inclusion in the 5th Destinos: Chicago International Latino Theater Festival.
The story is set in Lakeview, a community within Chicago, back in 2005-2006, when our cell phones were still dumb. The main character, Bull, is just returning to Lakeview after a decade in prison and trying to reestablish his life, including building a relationship with his daughter who barely remembers him. As expected in live theatre, the story has its ups and downs, making you hope things turn out alright yet unsure until you reach the end which type of alright that will be.
It’s playing through November 20th, and the page that I linked to above has a promo code for discounted tickets. If you see it, let me know what you think.