Isel Rodríguez and Lucienne Hernández, actors and comedians

Ms. Rodríguez and Ms. Hernández are members of Teatro Breve, an improv comedy troupe established more than a decade ago. Their latest show, “Noche de Jevas 8” (Girls’ Night 8), has been playing to sold-out crowds at their home in San Juan, the Shorty Castro Theater.

LUCIENNE: We had just invested in some renovations. Like a family who is unhappy with the carpet at their rented apartment, we decided to spruce up the place. Then, Hurricane María came and the place flooded, like so many places in Puerto Rico. All older theaters have mold and humidity issues, but after this hurricane that was a big problem. We had to invest significantly to clean out all the air conditioning vents. This isn’t a problem that only affected us, many theaters in Puerto Rico had water damage. Every time it rained after the hurricane it was a nightmare, and we actually had a roof over our heads. Can you imagine for the people who still have those blue tarps?

Maybe a week after the hurricane we started trying to communicate, but even coordinating a meeting was almost impossible. Everyone’s full-time job became trying to get gas or water. Also, once we got together we had to talk about jokes to tell people, and that was hard when we were all depressed. Even if we had had power, the theater was in bad shape, but even if it hadn’t been, we didn’t have a way to tell people we were back. Nobody would have come to see us, not because they didn’t want to, but because they had no gas to get there.

We started to write a show about the hurricane, but, we didn’t want to talk about anything other than what was going on, and we realized that the situation wasn’t funny enough yet to write a sketch. So we waited. Little by little we started meeting, getting used to functioning in this mess.

ISEL: I think going back to work quickly established a sense of normalcy. It gave us a purpose. It never occurred to us to tell different types of stories, so we really had to think about what was funny with everything that was going on. For me it wasn’t, “how can you do comedy after the hurricane?” It was, “how can you not?”

I think what we do is vital. We thought we were going to lose our audience, but suddenly after María they came. In the middle of the disaster they came to see us, they paid for the tickets. They needed to see themselves and to laugh. Artistic and cultural communities have pulled together, but you can’t help but think about the future. Our economic situation and the sociopolitical situation have, in a way, been worse than María. My friend Tania (Rosario-Méndez), who directs Taller Salud (a feminist, nonprofit grass-roots organization), says “natural disasters don’t kill people, governments kill people.” So I think natural disasters don’t decimate the arts, governments and political agendas do. As artists, we need to reframe our actions toward self-sustenance. — CHARO HENRÍQUEZ