Tom Titus South Coast Repertory’s two-theater complex...

Tom Titus

South Coast Repertory’s two-theater complex may resemble an

Afghanistan war zone these days with construction underway for its

new showplace opening in the fall, but SCR -- the performing entity

-- remains alive and well, and is displaying its wares under the

stars with a decidedly Spanish accent.

SCR’s annual Hispanic Playwrights Project is on the boards -- if

that’s the correct term for an outdoor venue -- nightly through

Sunday with “California Scenarios,” five one-act plays by Latino

playwrights being staged at various locations within the Isamu

Noguchi California Scenario, just a block from the theater.

It’s the second season for the midsummer project, but the first to

offer an extended schedule of public performances. Four of the five

playlets are return engagements and all are staged by Juliette

Carrillo, who has long been associated with the playwrights project

and has directed several SCR productions.

The first and last of the five short plays are heavy on comedy;

the other three are just heavy. All are impressively presented,

though a familiarity with Spanish would enhance the viewer’s

enjoyment, as the plays lay more emphasis on the language as does,

for example, SCR’s Christmas offering “La Posada Magica.”

In the opener, “Desert Longing, or Las Adventureras” by Anne

Garcia-Romero, four women of varying ages steal out to the desert to

await the arrival of a swashbuckling bandit who has proposed to (or

propositioned) all four separately. It’s a very funny, if somewhat

predictable, tale of suppressed anxiety.

The tone changes abruptly in the second entry, Jose Cruz

Gonzalez’s “Odysseus Cruz,” an updating and Latinization of the Greek

classic “The Odyssey.” Here Odysseus is a luckless adventurer who has

led his comrades across the border for a better life in America, only

to lose most of them to the Border Patrol or the unforgiving desert.

It’s a wrenching allegory with strong ties to current events.

“The Hanging of Josefa” by Richard Coca is a melodrama based on

actual events, in which a young woman, convicted of stabbing an

intruder to death, is executed “just because she was a Mexican.” Had

the perpetrator been a white man in the same situation, he more than

likely would have been spared, the story asserts.

Migrant workers scratching out a living in U.S. strawberry fields

is the topic of Joann Farias’ “Two Steps Forward, One Step Back.” The

longing for the life and family he left behind becomes too much for

one laborer, and he’s lured to his death, though the tone of the

piece renders the outcome ambiguous.

Comedy again raises its head in the finale, Luis Alfaro’s “The

Gardens of Aztlan,” which takes place in contemporary Orange County

outside an El Torito restaurant. Here tortilla makers bemoan the

fast-food environment and vow to find a “real orange” in the county

named for them, while four Angels cap-wearing compadres comment on

the region’s culture and cuisine. If the playlet makes you hungry for

a tortilla, the actors will satisfy that urge as you leave.

The performers are well matched to the material. Maricela Ochoa

excels in “Desert Longing” and as “Josefa.” Geoffrey Rivas is a

dynamic “Odysseus Cruz,” Elisa Bocanegra richly contributes to both

“Cruz” and “Desert Longing,” Monica Sanchez eerily narrates “Josefa,”

Winston J. Rocha is wrenching in “Two Steps Forward,” and Karmin

Murcelo is comically charming in “Gardens of Aztlan.”

Only four days remain to experience “California Scenarios,” and

playgoers are advised to dress warmly. The sculpture garden can be a

bit breezy and chilly at sunset, even after the warmest California

day.

MEMORIAL SERVICE -- A memorial service for Pati Tambellini,

founding director of the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse, who died last

month, will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday at the original

playhouse site, in the recreation auditorium on the Orange County

Fairgrounds.

Those attending should enter at the main gate on Fair Drive and

bear left to parking lot B1, near the Centennial Farm banner. Park

and walk to the auditorium.

Additional information may be obtained by calling Tambellini’s

son, Mike Witte, at (949) 495-7169, or Laurie Lambert at (714)

546-7811.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His

reviews appear Thursdays and Saturdays.