La Chunga is a simple (or comparatively simple) story, set in a low bar on the outskirts of Piura - a city in the north of Peru. The bar is owned and run by the eponymous La Chunga (Christina Paul), and frequented by a quartet of ne'er do wells who call themselves 'the Champions'. These four men waste their time in the bar, drinking and gambling, while La Chunga looks on with disdain.

The story begins with the four wastrels engaged in their usual pastimes. Sitting in the bar, playing at dice, and getting extraordinarily drunk. They also attempt to prise from their hostess the full story of the events that took place a year previously. One year ago, Josephino (Aaron Costa-Ganis), effective ringleader of the group, arrived in the bar with a lady called Meche (Elizabeth Kiernan). La Chunga took to the girl immediately, and when the rather hideous Josephino lost heavily at dice, she agreed to loan him money to stay in the game, in return for a night with the girl.

What the two women actually got up to over this night is never revealed, rather we are shown the theories, speculations, and fantasies of the four men in the story about what may have transpired. Needless to say, there is a certain quantity of - and why waste a perfectly good chance to use the term - hot girl-on-girl action involved (nothing terribly graphic or gratuitous, but enough to make That Sort of Thing a significant theme of the play). Several alternative hypotheses are also presented, each one essentially the speculations, desires or fears of one or another of the protagonists.

The set design is minimalist - most of the characters never moving from the one table at which they seem to spend their entire lives. Apart from that there's a bar and a bed, and that's about it. The dialogue is naturalistic, and as a result there are few truly sparkling lines or exchanges. I understand that the play was originally written in Spanish, and sometimes the translation shows a little, lines have that "should sound better" feel that you sometimes get. The effect is exacerbated by the somewhat hit-and-miss Hispanic accents in which the characters speak, making the dialogue occasionally hard to follow.

The cast all hold their own in their roles. The characters of José (Richard Greenberg), El Mono (Neil Boyd) and Lituma (Harry Ullman) have significantly less to do than the other three characters, spending a lot of time in the background. Aaron Costa-Ganis is suitably offensive as Josephino, and Elizabeth Kiernan is charmingly vulnerable as Meche. Christina Paul gives a fine performance in the title role, displaying genuine stage presence. She comes across as strong, cynical, and really rather sexy.

Overall, it's a decent show. Like many plays shown at the Burton Taylor, it is a low-budget student production, and so the occasional rough edge is to be expected, but the premise is strong, and the story is entertaining. It is certainly worth taking a look if you're short for something to do of an evening.

Daniel Hemmens, 1/03/05