The silence breaks in Ice Auditorium with the low, resonant cry of a cello and the weeping words of Frida Kahlo singing Llorona, The Weeping Woman. The sound fills the room with feelings of struggle but also the strength in Frida’s character.

Tres Vidas is a production that celebrates the very strength, tradition and struggle in the lives of three important icons in Hispanic culture: Frida Kahlo, Rufina Amaya, and Alfonsina Stroni. This play is divided into three separate sections, each act representing the women individually.

Although the set of the play was very limited, the language and music of the performance built a set from the ground up, letting the viewers be the makers. One could imagine the walls La Casa Azul in Coyoacán, Mexico, the night-lit streets of Buenos Aires, and the verdant, bloody landscapes of a massacre in El Salvador.

Each of these three characters is portrayed by a single actress, Cristina Isabel Lucas. Every character shift is drastic and leaves one questioning if it really is just one actress on stage. Eventually, one realizes that Lucas is breathing life into every one of these women. The change isn’t only drastic in costume, but unique in the persona and linguistic talent that Lucas delivers.

The play starts off with a proud Frida stating: “I drink tequila like a real mariachi.” Her story is a strong celebration of Mexican culture and of being a passionate artist. She illustrates her life by describing the painful, but truthful beauty in her art.

Traditional Mexican folk songs like Besame Morenita incandesce the passionate nature and relationship held with her culture, while songs like Llorona illustrate the painful side of Frida’s life. In this Mexican neighborhood, a rainy, melancholic marimba piece plays in the background as the play divulges into Frida’s life:  her tragic struggle with polio and her accidents that crippled her, as well as her love for Diego Rivera. In the end, Frida herself summarizes her life own life in the best way: “I am Frida Kahlo, the lame who dances.”

Rufina Amayo’s story shows a different side of the pain and struggle. Diverting from the cultural pride of Kahlo’s art, Amayo’s story shows another truthful, tragic reality. The sounds shift, becoming more ominous and discordant, as we learn of a bloody massacre of an entire village. The marimba’s harsher, faster pitches reflect the mental struggle of a woman who’s lost everything: her husband, her children, and to an extent, herself. The cello and piano’s notes dart around like the woman who tries to hide from the murderous soldiers.

“It was at first difficult for me to connect with [Rufina] and memorize her lines,” says Lucas. “But when I started using the dialect of my own people, having grown up in Colombia when there was a lot of violence and poverty, I felt a strange connection with [Rufina].”

From here, the scene shifts to the lamp-lit streets of Buenos Aires, we encounter Alfonsina Stroni. We see a different transition in darkness here. Rather than the fast paced harshness and danger in Amaya’s story, Stroni’s darkness is more gloomy, slow and encroaching. With a strong focus on her poetry and her opinion on women’s subordination in society, her independence and her powerful persona stand out. We also see into her side as a mother, with love and regrets. Bent towards constant pain that she has faced, she continually alludes to suicide and returning to the sea.

This character was kept more “contemporary” to avoid making her into a caricature, explained Lucas. Thus the character speaks in standard English and avoids language deviations more than any of the others.

This does make Stroni more relatable to. Because we aren’t distanced by a culture as much, Stroni talks more directly and has a much deeper relationship with the listener.

The event was made possible, free of charge to the public, by Ronnie Lacroute and was part of Linfield’s PLACE event and the Lacroute Art Series.

Lucas can be reached via Twitter @cristinaxlt. Information on the musicians and further showing locations are available at www.coreensemble.com/about.