The James Bond films have been with us for more than 40 years, for better or worse. (The projection design is by Alexandra Kelly Colburn and Kate Freer.) Let’s just say it is a very lengthy parade of performers.Casino Royale, directed by Martin Campbell, screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis, based on the novel by Ian Fleming In one of the production’s most trenchant moments, the faces of white actors who have played Latino characters - such as Al Pacino as Cuban drug lord Tony Montana in “Scarface” - are shown on an upstage screen. “I wanted to be anything but me,” he says, describing the way he was “composing myself out of the pieces of everybody else,” and trying to be “worthy enough of being seen,” noting that it’s possible to be “so desperate to be seen that you destroy yourself.”īut “The Real James Bond …,” which is directed by Daniel Banks, ranges beyond autobiography and an examination of Rubirosa’s impact on Rivas to encompass broader issues of colorism, code-switching (he mimics the formal tone of voice his father employs when addressing white people), and the still-lagging representation of nonwhite performers in Hollywood. In his youth, Rivas says, he was riddled by fear and uncertainty.

He calls on individual audience members to read Rubirosa’s words aloud, an approach that disrupts the production’s flow and diminishes its dramatic impact a bit, especially in a show that runs only 70 minutes.Īt the end, I actually found myself wishing it were longer - a rare feeling as we near the end of a year in Boston-area theater that has included marathon productions of “Angels in America” and “The Lehman Trilogy.” Rivas seems intent on making “The Real James Bond …” an interactive show.

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