On May 14, I took the Metra up north to City Lit Theater in Edgewater to watch the premiere of City Lit’s 144th show, the musical Aztec Human Sacrifice. Directed by Jay Españo and written by Kingsley Day and Philip LaZebnik, the musical features a ritual human sacrifice that prompts its discussion of love and death in the shadow of an impending apocalypse, when the sun will fail to rise.
Aztec Human Sacrifice takes place at the end of the century for the Aztec Empire. On the eve of a new dawn, the chosen sacrifice (Freddy Mauricio) makes a daring escape from the High Priest (Luis Del Valle). Raised in chastity inside the walls of the temple, the Chosen One yearns to find love, and when he takes refuge in a bedchamber, he finds none other than the princess of the Empire (Marcela Ossa).
When the High Priest discovers the Chosen One in the princess’s arms, the pair take flight into the desert, where they encounter a sorcerer (Eric José Mendoza). Chaos abounds as magical forces come out to play. Will the Chosen One and the princess survive their escape into the desert? Or will they be consumed by eternal darkness? At the conclusion of the musical, the sun rises again over the horizon, but whether apocalypse has been avoided is left ambiguous by conquistador Hernán Cortés’s ending cameo.
With its Disney-esque storyline, Aztec Human Sacrifice is above all entertaining; perhaps this is unsurprising given coauthor LaZebnik’s work on movies Mulan and Pocahontas. Playful scenes taking place at a ballgame or a bustling marketplace help the modern audience better immerse themselves in ancient Aztec life. Similarly, witty dialogue such as vendors calling for customers to buy maize or poultry “before the end of the world” aroused frequent laughter from the audience. Throughout the musical, Freddy Mauricio’s natural comedy as the Chosen One is contrasted with Luis Del Valle’s serious and grand tone as the High Priest.
The songs in Aztec Human Sacrifice are magical, composed by Day and supported by live instrumentation, with Annie Liu on the keyboard, Lior Shragg on percussion, and Priya Fink on the flute and piccolo. The music beautifully encapsulates the romance between the princess and the Chosen One following their chance meeting in “Come Into My Arms,” and it captures the ominous nature of the apocalypse just as well in my personal favorite, “The Sun Descends.”
Although lighthearted and comedic, Aztec Human Sacrifice pays serious attention to faithfully representing Aztec culture in its discussion of themes surrounding love, death, and apocalypse. Informed by Virginia Miller, a pre-Columbian professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and the Xochitl-Quetzal Aztec Dance Company, the production carefully crafted its costumes, set, and movements to pay respect to traditions such as ullamaliztli, a ball game played by the Aztecs. The musical immersed the audience in a deeply religious system of belief that valued communal responsibility, and the material world and the spiritual world were in constant contention. Is the High Priest right that “mere carnal pleasures cannot compare to union with the sun,” or do the prostitutes have some wisdom for living in the here and now?
From a narrative standpoint, the show is full of witty writing that makes you laugh. At the same time, the show’s emphasis on the physicality of the heart in love and ritual sacrifice forms a serious investigation of what it means to deal with the uncertainty of death. Charting their course in the desert, the princess and the Chosen One are forced to wrestle with their guilt and responsibility as the psychoactive manifests itself into the fantastical. How does the past define one’s future, and what is worth living for when the world is about to end? All in all, Aztec Human Sacrifice weaves a relentlessly human story. As the Chosen One puts it, perhaps love is worth finding even at the end of the world.
“Aztec Human Sacrifice” played at City Lit Theater from May 5, 2023 to June 18, 2023.
