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| Liza Fernandez |
By Joe Straw
The Company of Angels has moved from its downtown Spring
Street address to 1350 San Pablo St., Los Angeles, California. The location has plenty of free parking and
their new home is an intimate theatre and an incredible space for you to
venture out to see.
There and Back written
by Raul Garza and directed by Michelle Bossy is now playing at the Company of
Angels through April 21st, 2019.
Immigrants, especially those from the south of the United
States, have been consistently treated unfairly throughout my lifetime. But,
human beings move for a reason, for a better life. And despite the injustices put upon them,
they endure living here. They are very dependable,
extremely loyal, and work with so much ferocity knowing their lives depend on
it.
Raul Garza has written a beautiful play about the struggles
of an immigrant family living in the United States from the 1960’s up to the
present. The dialogue rings a sincere truth, and an honest perspective of the
human struggle.
Gloria (Liza Fernandez) has arrived from Mexico to be with
her husband, Victor (Bernardo Cubria), a farm laborer. But she soon discovers that their home is
nothing more than a smelly converted chicken coup.
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| Anna Lamadrid and Liza Fernandez |
Gloria lights a Virgen de Guadalupe scented candle to rid
the living space of the smell only to have Guadalupe (Anna Lamadrid)
appear. The saint and the sinner agree
to speak English to get acclimated to the United States.
But this Guadalupe, rather than offer hope and inspiration,
is rather saucy and cynical in the way she brings freedom to the enslaved Gloria,
who has at this point in her life nowhere to go.
“You don’t have a choice.”
Guadalupe
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| Liza Fernandez and Bernardo Cubria |
In Garza’s play, there are no do-overs as Gloria struggles
day-to-day to make a better life for herself and her husband. But there’s a problem, mostly her womanizing
husband who never has time to come home and help with their life struggles.
Gloria has a moment, with suitcase in hand; either walk out of
her current predicament, or stay. She
chooses the latter rather than listen to her heart. And, ever the optimist, in
the back of her mind, she feels that she is smart enough to do better for the
both of them.
Because of that decision, she struggles with her marriage,
her pregnancy, her conservative son, Rey (Bernando Cubria), and then her
grandson, Max (also Bernardo Cubria).
There is a lot to like in Liza Fernandez’s performance as Gloria. Mostly it is her strength in that character
that guides her through her life and throughout her performance. Fernandez
creates a character that never gives up no matter who she has to fight. In the
end, she has lost some battles and they weigh her down terribly but she never
gives up. This is a performance to watch multiple times in order to fully grasp
the nuance. Her accent is spectacular and her actions on stage are fluid!
Anna Lamadrid is
Guadalupe, a different type of Guadalupe, a spicy one with an eye on fashion of
the day. A woman not fixed on wearing
robe but one who likes the finer things in life with a shot of tequila. This is
the second show that I’ve seen in as many weeks that featured the Virgen de
Guadalupe. And the question that keeps coming up in this character is, why is
she there? What is she there to give other than solicitude? What is the unholy impetus that moves her
into a focused drive, an objective? And how does that carry us into the future?
Ambiguity is nice in a character, leaving us with some unanswered questions,
but the character has to move in a certain direction to give us hope, and an
idea of finality. That said, there is
much to enjoy in Lamadrid’s performance and the manner in which she gives life
to the character.
Bernardo Cubria
plays Victor (the husband), Rey (the son), and Max (the grandson). While they
have similarities, Cubria gives each character a unique and well-defined
physical life. Sadly, they are all the heavies.
There’s not much to like of the three characters since they all have
conservative ideas on how the world should work. For instance, Victor is a man who loves his
freedom more than a committed relationship. He is a misogamist unfocused in his
commitment to his wife and an obscurantist when explaining his whereabouts. How do these characters move Gloria to her
final destination? The ways in which they move her have to be significant
moments that change the direction of the character. Those reactions must be
absorbed, and then defined before moving on.
Michelle Bossy,
the director, does a find job with the material. The actors find a way to be natural within
the period of the times, the sixties, seventies, and eighties, through today. The title of the play is There and Back and
one would suggest the play is finding the way back, the through line that gets
her there. Gloria seems to get there
with the help of the Virgen but the ambiguous ending is not clear on how that
transpired.
Raul Garza has
written a terrific play and certainly one with a lot of heart. The characters are honest, funny, and without
question all living their own lives, in dramatic form and justification.
Special notice to Lowell
Bartholomee, Sound Designer, and Alina Goodman, Additional Sound Design, who
did marvelous work with the radio sounds.
Other members of the crew are as follows:
Alina Goodman – Stage Manager
Justin Huen – Lighting Design
Audra Ihlenfeld – Fight Choreographer
There’s more to be said but time is running short as this
play has a limited run and ends this weekend.
Run! Run! Run! And
take a parent or grandparent who immigrated to the United States.
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