The bright orange ass on all of Faena’s promos feels like a promise—of humor, drama, sensuality, boldness, and probably, a little bit of bullfighting.

If you like irreverent, chaotic, laugh-out-loud theater, then Faena backs that ass up. If you want one of those "crumpets on the lawn" plays, this one is not one of those.

Staged at the Plaza de Toros de COHO—a bullfighting arena play on CoHo Productions—Faena is the work of playwright Dylan Hankins and the third PETE Presents show, since the dynamic local troupe began their mentorship-production initiative in 2022. The Mercury asked to watch Faena's dress rehearsal, since the show is only playing for one weekend.

The word faena describes the final part of a bullfight performance, a series of flourishes before the matador is meant to kill the bull. The word—the program reminds us—can also mean "the chore" or "the trick." After the play, Hankins tells the Mercury that faena could also be a command akin to "just do it."

The aforementioned matador butt. Courtesy of PETE Presents

From the beginning, Hankins charges at the audience, as if he himself were the matador or the bull. He operates as a co-narrator with Gabby Reyes (credited as the interpreter), but he's also there to distract the audience, whenever the other players need to set-up or tear-down a scene. Skipping rope or pantomiming furious masturbation beneath a naked man apron, Hankins fires forth thick swathes of information: the stages of a bullfight, what happens in those stages, even the parts of a bull that might be consumed. 

And despite all that, he's not even the most fun actor in the show. That honor belongs to Rocco Weyer who steals scenes as mother figure Carmen and bull Floripondio. Hankins told the Mercury that the comedic gender swapping throughout Faena was actually inspired by Weyer.

A scene from the play appeared in last year's Fertile Ground Festival, and when the cast were working through different blocking ideas, Weyer exasperatedly demanded to play Carmen for a change of pace. His portrayal was so funny that gender-swapping became part of the script. "It ended up being something that improved the piece," Hankins said. "The drag of it adds to the absurdity."

Faena is presented mostly in English, though all the players but Reyes and Hankins are meant to be speaking Castilian Spanish. As interpreter, Reyes stands in the back, at a lectern, and translates each line into English. There's a subtle interplay at work, with the cast affecting the Castilian Spanish "th" sounds, and Reyes' perpetual incredulity at what's happening before him. Hankins noted that of all the "seis talentosos actores," Reyes is the only one not completely fluent in Spanish, so the moments during a furious onstage sex scene where he seems to be guessing at what the lovers shout to one another—"I'm gonna melt!" "Do you want the milk?"—come off as genuine and deeply funny.

With the exception of Hankins and the work's central figure, matador Victor (Paulina Jaeger-Rosete), all the characters in Faena play more than one role. The story loosely revolves around Victor's inevitable battle with a bull who killed another bullfighter, his steamy relationship with Lu (Kasia Caravello), and contentious interactions with his mother, Carmen.  

Faena's story ends up feeling like history's most deeply-researched sketch comedy premise. While we never come to care for the matador, the daring physical comedy is an absolute success. The last scene of Act One sees almost all los talentosos actores writhing on the floor for reasons we don't want to spoil—but there's no way you won't laugh. For all its strangeness, Faena is a good-time comedy about bullfighting.


PETE presents Faena at CoHo Productions, 2257 NW Raleigh, Fri Jan 31- Sun Feb 2, 7:30 pm, $15, tickets here, content warning for bullfighting, sex scenes, and murder.