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.
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