Evening Performance

Intensely private, largely improvised, this portrait of a middle-aged actress struggling with a role that propels her into personal crisis (echoes of Cassavetes' Opening Night) consists mainly of an emotional confrontation between Lola Herrera and her ex-husband Dicenta. But the brief moments showing her with friends, children and doctor aren't enough to open up a painfully introverted central scene into the promised analysis of 'machismo'; and although it's impossible not to admire Herrera's honesty, as the endless hysterics/histrionics mount, so unfortunately does the spectator's tedium.