Wedding Bell Blues: Enrique Andrade Stars in Portland Production of Bodas de Sangre

Enrique Andrade is one busy guy.
By day he’s a court certified Spanish interpreter for the Oregon Judicial Department. He’s also the proud owner of the impossibly suave voice that makes MAX announcements in Spanish.
In the queer community he serves on the Board of Directors for the Metropolitan Community Church of Portland, and he volunteers at the Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center.
His acting experience is limited, a technicality that did not stop him from scoring a major role in Federico García Lorca’s 1932 tragedy Bodas de sangre (Blood Wedding), running February 1 through 23 at Miracle Theatre. Andrade plays El Novio, a Spanish farmer who’s too busy fulfilling his mentally ill mother’s expectations to realize that his beautiful bride has the hots for another fellow.
“I’m really angry with my character because he’s such a dumbass,” Andrade said. “He doesn’t realize the bride doesn’t love him, and he’s emotionally inept.”
García Lorca – a homosexual who died in 1936 at the outset of the Spanish Civil War – is best known for his poetry, and for his brutal condemnations of provincial Spanish life in emotionally taxing plays like Bodas de sangre and La casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba).
Milagro Theater mainstay Olga Sanchez directs the production. The opening night performance on Friday, February 1 will be performed in Spanish with no English subtitles. All other performances feature subtitles.
“The tone of the play is so dramatic that you can’t avoid heaviness,” Andrade noted. “But there are some comic elements. I just hope that people will walk away feeling something.”
Andrade isn’t sure how much acting work he wants to tackle after Bodas de Sangre. “I don’t want to overwhelm myself with it,” he said. In 2008 he hopes that romance will take precedence over his professional and creative endeavors. “This might be the year of the partner,” he said in that sexy MAX way of his.

Miracle Theatre, 525 S.E. Stark St., 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays; $18-$20, $15 for students and senior; call 503-236-7253 or visit www.milagro.org. ALSO…$12 preview show on Thursday, January 31.