Words and language have always been important to Houston actor Luis Galindo.
“My love of language has been [there] from a very young age,” he said. “Any time I would hear specific words, whether they were in church, in mass, in song lyrics or in the stories I was reading, words always had an effect on me. I didn’t know what those words meant, but I knew they made me feel something.”
When we talk, he’s feeling under the weather, recovering from a cold as he digs into his latest role – one filled with words. He’s making his Rec Room Arts debut in the theater’s season opening production of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, playing composer Antonio Salieri.
“I never thought I’d get to play this role,” he says. “I question [Rec Room Artistic Director] Matt Hune’s sanity.” He laughs. “But I’ve always loved the play. It’s a brilliant piece of writing.”
The play, which first premiered in London in 1979 before moving to Broadway in 1980, takes place in 18th century Vienna and centers around the tumultuous relationship between Salieri and fellow composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. (The film version, released in 1984, won eight Oscars). When we encounter these characters, Salieri is an established composer in the court of Emperor Josef and Mozart is a young upstart.
Also, a musical genius.
For Salieri, who has promised God he will sacrifice everything for his work, the foul-mouthed, flippant youngster is the living embodiment of talent he’ll never have.
And oh, the words (and words and words) that Salieri muses and curses and laments and pleads and spits as he struggles to come to terms with his own mediocrity. This is a drama that covers a range of feelings and themes.
“ [The play is] about God,” Galindo said. “You know, this is one of the oldest struggles that people have: wrestling with the ineffable and our place in it, our contribution to it.”
Galindo has made plenty of contributions to Houston theater over the last several decades, appearing in shows across the city. He’s been a regular at Catastrophic Theatre and Stages, in addition to appearing at 4th Wall Theatre Company, The Alley and Main Street Theater. His credits also include Griffith Park’s Shakespeare Festival in Los Angeles and multiple films.
Digging into Amadeus, he’s tackled Salieri’s big speeches first – and there are many – crafting until the words become automatic and the feelings second nature. But in doing that, he’s considered what drives his character, whose jealousy descends into madness and obsession, and who comes to believe he’s sabotaged Mozart’s career, driving the younger composer to his grave. It isn’t only a rivalry between and older man and vastly more talented younger one, he thinks.
“I think a lot of people, you know, want to leave a legacy behind,” he said. “I think people really connect to that. Like, ‘I was here. I made a contribution.’ And when you, when you don’t feel significant, it can weigh heavy on you. For Salieri, it’s ‘Why is that not me? Why wasn’t I, after I gave myself to God, I devoted myself to God, that he wouldn’t pick me to be his vessel to be his voice in this world?’”
Those are huge questions to tackle, and Galindo is here for it. He is excited for the part, and thrilled to be working with Rec Room. And he hopes that his work will make audience feel something, the way Shaffer’s words have with him.
”The words reach as far as they can until they cannot reach some of those feelings like the way Mozart’s music does,” he said. “It transcends into the sublime.”
Performances are scheduled for September 18 (preview) with opening night September 19 through October 10 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays at Rec Room Arts, 100 Jackson. For more information, call 713-510-3243 or visit recroomarts.org. $26-$52.