GO EXILES Playwright Carlos Lacamara's drama puts a powerful human face on the Mariel boat lift, Fidel Castro's mean joke of 1980, when Cuban-Americans were invited to come to Cuba to fetch their loved ones, to take them to the Land of Opportunity, but were instead subjected to a painful bait and switch. Cuban-American mechanic Rolando (Alex Fernandez) sails his rickety boat to Cuba, believing he's going to be bringing his beloved mother to his American home. Instead, the authorities force him to take Rolando's pompous brother-in-law, Joaquin (Lacamara), Joaquin's sullen daughter, Sadia (Heather Hemmens), and some other extra treats — a maniac (Khary Payton) and a murderer (Mark Adair-Rios). Midway through the voyage, the boat's motor breaks and tensions flare among the passengers. Rolando's teenage son Roli (Ignacio Serricchio) falls for Sadia, while Rolando and his brother-in-law fight over long-ago wrongs. Then the murderer makes his move. In David Fofi's emotionally rich, character-driven production, the conflicts brew and simmer, aided by the claustrophobic mood provided by John Iocavelli's beautifully rickety boat set. The show's pacing sags occasionally, particularly toward the end, which feels inordinately drawn out — and the breakdown of the boat seems like a forced plot development to keep the characters from being able to get anywhere. Yet the the play's emotions crackle, and the piece brims with real fury and regret, whether it's the anger of Fernandez's excellently rigid Rolando, or the snappishness of Hemmens' snide but vulnerable Sadia, forced to abruptly uproot her life. Payton's haunting turn as the maniac, whose lunacy, we discover, springs from years of torture, also stands out. Hayworth Theatre, 2509 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; thru Feb. 27. (323) 960-4442. (Paul Birchall)
PHOTO COURTESY OF MOTH THEATRE COMPANY
Geography of a Horse Dreamer
Related Content
More About
GEOGRAPHY OF A HORSE DREAMER Neither a major nor even a very memorable member of the Sam Shepard canon, this 1974 script dates from the London-exile period in which Shepard was still trying to crack the nut of the beginning-middle-end dramatic structure. Which means it belongs to a handful of tween plays that share little of the poetical fireworks of the '60s or the craft and thematic riches of his post–Pulitzer Prize work. Nevertheless, Shepard did write Geography of a Horse Dreamer as a comedy, and that's where director Jamie Wollrab and the playwright part company. Kris Lemche is Cody, a Wyoming cowboy whose onetime ability to dream horse-race winners has turned into a losing streak after he's kidnapped and imprisoned by gamblers Beaujo (John Markland) and Santee (the fine Scoot McNairy). When effete mob boss Fingers (an inspired Dov Tiefenbach) demotes the men to the dog tracks, Cody's prognosticative powers are temporarily restored but at the cost of his sanity, which leads Fingers' cadaverous henchman/quack, the Doctor (Thurn Hoffman), to salvage Cody's valuable "dreaming bone" by cutting it out of the back of his neck. Essentially a seduction-of-the-artist allegory embroidered by a pastiche of plot and character archetypes from vintage Warner Bros. gangster melodramas, Shepard's surrealist aims — along with their intended laughs — are all but lost in Wollrab's realistic mise-en-scène and some wildly uneven performances. Moth Theatre, 4359 Melrose Ave., L.A.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; thru March 6. (323) 666-2296. (Bill Raden)
JUST A SONG AT TWILIGHT Willard Manus has chosen an interesting subject — growing up in a Jewish household with a deaf mother in 1928-1942 — but his autobiographical script seldom gains momentum. Henriette (Lene Pedersen) and her older sister Marion (Janne Halleskov Kindberg) hoped for singing careers, but both lost their hearing in early adulthood. The play centers on the plight of Henriette, her self-proclaimed Bolshevik husband, Izzy (Ilia Volok), and their son, Ben (Michael Hampton), who yearns to try out for the Giants before he's sent off to World War II. Stifling any sense of a dramatic trajectory, every scene introduces new and different thematic materials: a discourse on ear surgery in the 1920s; a debate over the relative merits of lipreading versus sign language; an argument about capitalism versus communism; rivalry between sisters;, father-son conflicts; a lesson in lipreading taught by an amorous teacher (Darin Dahms); and a wartime romance between Ben and his girlfriend (Julie Bersani). All these elements could be combined in a successful drama, but here they don't mesh. There's good work by the cast, but director John DiFusco isn't able to focus the play's rambling structure. Songs of the times and a historical slide show do provide evocative period flavor. WriteAct Repertory Theatre, 6128 Yucca Ave., Hlywd.; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; thru Feb. 27. (323) 469-3113. (Neal Weaver)
GO KATAKI Shimon Wincelberg's two-hander is set during World War II on a remote Pacific island (wonderfully depicted in painstaking detail by designer Potsch Boyd). Protagonist Alvin Coombs (Fernando Aldaz) literally drops into the story after he is forced to parachute from his plane during combat. Much to his dismay, the island is not deserted, and he finds himself at the mercy of Kimura (Yas Takahashi), an armed Japanese solider who frisks him at knifepoint, taking his cigarettes and cash. Worse, Kimura speaks almost no English, and Alvin almost no Japanese. What begins as grunts, gestures and improvised sign language, however, soon turns into true communication as the mortal enemies get to know each other. None of this is smooth by any means, but it stokes the drama, providing moments of humor, tension and poignancy. Director Peter Haskell brings out this emotional depth in the text, masterfully massaging stretches of silence into powerful conflict, and his elongated transitions between scenes come to embody the Beckettian pace of life for this stranded pair. Haskell is aided by Louis Roth's fight choreography, which is at times scary in its violence, and of course by Aldaz's and Takahashi's moving performances, so authentic in their humanity. What is most enjoyable, though, is the return to theater's origins in basic movement and expression. This creates an atmosphere reminiscent of a time when we took more than a moment to contemplate life. McCadden Place Theatre, 1157 N. McCadden Place, Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; thru Feb. 13. plays411.com/kataki. (Mayank Keshaviah)
