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A CurtainUp Los Angeles Review
Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles
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"In this country, it is better to have nothing."— Tita
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Sabina Zuniga Varela
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The playwright's adaptations of classical Greek dramas (including Electricidad and Oedipus El Rey) represent not only unique odes to life in contemporary Los Angeles, but also reimaginings of familiar stories by an artist with an eye for storytelling, for character, for myth and certainly for blood.
With the Chicago mounting in the can, Mojada comes triumphantly home via a new production produced by the Theatre at Boston Court and staged by Jessica Kubzansky at the Getty Villa's Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater. Kubzansky's harrowing production will rip out your vital organs, fillet them and serve them to you laced with jalapeno sauce. The production should also make audiences consider a bit more carefully the plights of some of the invisible communities within L.A. Stylized though it most certainly is, Mojada mines the immigrant experience a lot more cerebrally and effectively than the revival of Real Women Have Curves that just opened at the Pasadena Playhouse.
The original myth is well known. Sorceress Medea, exiled and scorned by her feckless husband Jason, exacts a horrific revenge. Lamentations. Curtain. Alfaro transports Medea's tale to the present day. Our heroine has become a recently arrived seamstress from Mexico who has undergone hardships and atrocities to follow her husband's dream. The playwright further ups the ante by placing Medea alongside two other immigrant women who have learned to adapt to American life more dexterously than she has. Told multiple times that she must make sacrifices, our caged bird of a heroine gives and gives until she can give no more. Naïve or otherwise, a woman scorned is a dangerous creature indeed.
We meet Medea (played by Sabina Zuniga Varela) at the Boyle Heights home she shares with husband Hason (Justin Huen) and their adolescent son Acan (Quinn Marquez alternating with Anthony Gonzalez). Acan worships his father, tolerates his mother's caresses and, with his soccer balls and California clothes, seems to become more Americanized by the minute.
In scenic designer Efren Delgadillo Jr.'s configuration, the home itself is a brace of scaffolding covered by a drop that sits in the shadow of the museum. Medea's "old country ways" (and presumably cheap rates) have earned her a few clients and perhaps a little bit of cash. She is deathly afraid of going anywhere, but, for reasons we learn later, cannot return to Mexico. Hason, a contractor, is considerably more mobile and ambitious. He doesn't want to simply help design those larger homes with swimming pools, he wants to own them, and his new boss is helping advance his career. Medea's companion is the droll and smart-mouthed old servant Tita (played by the one-named actress VIVIS) who is also the story's narrator. The two women get regular visits from Josefina (Zilah Mendoza), a fellow immigrant who is gaining some success expand her bread stand into a larger enterprise.
The warning signs of trouble are evident even though Medea chooses to ignore them. By the time Hason's employer Armida (Marlene Forte) finally does arrive to meet the entire family, it's clear her intentions are anything but honorable.
Like Josefina and Medea, Armida also came to America with nothing. Now she's a tough as nails businesswoman who owns the very house that Hason and Medea are renting, and who has her eye on homewrecking and empire building.
The reasons behind Medea, Hason and Acan's hasty flight from their homeland and the horrors of the crossing are recounted in a chilling flashback. Indeed, sections of Mojada are stomach-turning in their cruelty while others (mostly those involving VIVAS's tart tongued Tita) are quite funny. Still, you probably don't want to come to the Fleischman in search of a lot of light-heartedness particularly once Medea starts tapping into her old country ways to access her skills in herbology.
Alfaro dexterously weaves contemporary references to telenovelas, chisme and pain dulce with the description of a "killer" dress that would not be out of place in a Jacobean revenge drama. Much of Mojada's really horrific stuff mercifully takes place offstage, but that amphitheatre can certainly hold and amplify a scream.
Several of Kubzansky's cast members are veterans of Alfaro's plays and sync up nicely with the hybridized ancient Greek-present day storytelling that the playwright has created. Mendoza is warm and witty as Josie, the friend caught in the middle of domestic politics. Forte's Armida is a one-woman army of hips, bust and sexual entitlement. With her dramatically flowing dark hair, Varela's Medea does indeed suggest a kind of human bird befitting the play's description of her. Witnessing her transformation from sparrow to raptor is what gives Mojada its boiling blood.
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Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles A new adaptation by Luis Alfaro based on Euripides's Medea Directed by Jessica Kubzansky Produced by The Theatre @ Boston Court Cast: Vivis, Sabina Zuniga Varela, Justin HUen, Anthony Gonzalez, Quinn Marquez, Zilah Mendoza, Marlene Forte Scenic and Technical Designer: Efren Delgadillo Jr. Costume Designer: Raquel Barreto Lighting Designer: Ben Zamora Original Music and Sound Designer: Bruno Louchouarn Properties Designer: Christopher Scott Murillo Production Manager: Cheryl Rizzo Graphic Designer: Nancy Nimoy Fight Director: Mike Mahaffey Stage Manager: Jaclyn Kalkhurst Assistant Production Manager: Cat Sowa Assistant Costume Designer: Rachel Clinkscales Assistant Director: Courtney Buchan Assistant Stage Manager: Alyssa Escalante Wardrobe: Ellen L. Sandor Running Crew: Bobby Gutierrez Plays through October 3, 2015 at the Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater, Getty Villa, 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades. (310) 440-7300, www.getty.edu Running time: One hour, 30 minutes with no intermission Reviewed by Evan Henerson |
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