'Happily Ever After'

Reading of the play ‘Happily Ever After’ by Cristina Colmena as part of ‘unbound’ evening.

Colmena has flair, and a subtly European mind-set when it comes to romance.

—The Washington Post

Synopsis

One and one not always equals two. The couple and its complicated arithmetic through three stories where characters want to be happy but they don’t know how. When you get stood up, when you wake up beside a stranger, when after thirty years you don’t know what to speak about. The loneliness of sleeping alone and of sleeping with someone. Why one plus one may equal nothing?

Three couples of different ages, representing a lifetime of romantic struggles, are crippled by fears and insecurities and unable to find fulfilment in love. We see young lovers bound by a powerful attraction yet destined to part; cynical middle aged ‘one night standers’ failing to act on a promising encounter; and an older, deeply unhappy couple keeping up appearances after thirty years of marriage.

The compelling dark comedy and its high emotional resonance present a chance for self-reflection and an opportunity to learn from the characters’ mistakes. All three “un-love” stories are poignant reminders that if we keep sitting on the fence, fearful and pessimistic, happiness may never come.

Happily Ever After

• Published author Cristina Colmena. With Abigail Classey and Brandon Scott Hughes. Directed by Liz Maxwell. 
• Happily Ever After was part of Pen World Voices Festival 2013, and produced at the Ambassador’s Theater in Washington DC in March 2014.

About “unobserved”

Award-winning New York City-based fine art and portrait photographer Kristofer Dan-Bergman will have a show at his studio, Vestry Gallery, with an opening reception on May 9th from 6 to 9 pm. Dan-Bergman will  show unObserved and exhibit work from his two other award-winning series S_PACE and Away by appointment. In addition, he will show case his new series BO(a)RD.  View more work on his website.

As part of that weekend Dan-Bergman will also be hosting  unPlugged, a Jazz show with Yana Bibb in duo with Alessandro Fadini on Saturday May 10th, fron 6 to 9 pm; and unBound on Sunday, May 11th, from 6 to 9 pm, with Sari Caine and Cristina Colmena.