By Carol Davis
SAN DIEGO — Darn, I wish I had paid more attention in my high school Spanish class, or taken some courses when I moved here, or was fluent in a second language. If that were the case, I would have been better prepared to understand a good portion of the dialogue in playwright Tanya Saracho’s compelling story of Kita y Fernanda now in an absorbing production at Mo’Olelo Performing Arts Company.
But then again, maybe it’s better that I felt the confusion and frustration of not understanding so as to feel kinship to those who do not speak our language but hear it all around them. Being locked out of half of what’s being said is not an easy situation in which to find yourself.
During the performance I tried to conjure up the few words I did know, but before I could do the translation, the players were back to speaking English again and I realized that my concentration was elsewhere and I had to refocus. It was then that I decided to let it be and stay in the moment, maddening as it was.
If you come here illegally as a child and your mother is a maid in another’s household and all that is spoken is Spanish, you keep a low profile and you learn the language (from the one English speaker) through osmosis, if you will. Kita (Cynthia Bastidas) was that child. She and her mother Concha (Olivia Espinoza) lived with Doña Silvia Valderrama (Melba Novoa) and her daughter Fernanda (Gabriela Trigo).
The Valderrama’s are an upper class Mexican family but citizens of this country living in a small southern border town near Houston yet isolated from the outside world. Doña Silvia speaks only Mexican Spanish. Fernanda speaks both languages and acts as the interpreter for the family in dealing with all outside intrusions. She goes to school and has everything an only and very spoiled child would and does have including Kita as her play toy for the first few years of their adolescent years together.
Saracho’s memory play moves backward in time with both Kita and Fernanda now young women and both in Chicago taking part in the immigration rally/ march. Unbeknownst to each other, they spot each other but at different times never meeting each other’s eye.
From that rally we are allowed glimpses of them as adults recalling (based on their own memories) their first encounter, their play times together and the growing differences in their maturity. But for the most part we are witness to what makes them tick; their personalities, family backgrounds and of course, opportunities.
The differences that allowed them to get closer to one another and conversely, the tensions caused by those differences is the a schism that will not abide one of to them to acknowledge the other some 14 years later. Intermittently we are pulled back to the present and the rally that brought them here this day and that will allow us to fill in the gaps and get caught up on where they are now.
In an emotional and very realistic tone, artistic director Seema Sueko and co director Robert Castro guide their characters through a series of mazes that weaves a story of two girls each with distinctive personalities who are thrown together through no fault of their own.
However with so many of their differences, I found that so much of the little surprises, squabbles and laughs were reminiscent of my daughters at their ages; one trying to pierce the ears of another, Barbie sharing and playing and all three in a free-for-all over best friends. For all we know, they could have been sisters, but that scenario ends there.
Lest we forget that with all the good times and bad, early education and opportunities shared Kita is at a distinct disadvantage, she has no papers; her future is as distant and remote as was her past. And on that note, we meet up with the girls one last time still never seeing eye to eye.
Top-notch acting by all four women dominated the performance I attended. Except for the times Ms. Espinosa was playing several other characters like Jessica, Fernandas’ Valley Girl (Texas style) school chum and Kita’s pot smoking friend Chela she was the perfect example of a dutiful housekeeper/ maid and laundress. Ms. Nova is perfectly cast as the emotionally unstable and lonely mother of a spoiled little brat plus she is beautiful with her slicked back hair and perfect posture… and always looked like she stepped out of a bandbox (Jeannie Gaioto).
But enough can’t be said for the performances of Cynthia Bastidas and Gabriela Trigo who embodied their respective characters so much so that it took Ms. Trigo several moments to compose herself at play’s end. I call that being in character. Brava!
David F. Weiners set design follows the pattern of isolation with a bare wooden backdrop draped with flags for the rally and totally empty for the rest only to be surrounded by reddish looking cabinet doors stacked three high, closing off their world but occasionally lit by Jason Biber’s spot-on lighting.
You will not be disappointed in the production values this company has to offer nor should you shun a bilingual drama even if one of the languages is not your native tongue. Many of our grandparents struggled under these very same circumstances.
See you at the theatre.
Dates: Through Oct. 21st
Organization: Mo’Olelo Performing Arts Company
Phone: 619-342-7395
Production Type: Drama
Where: 930 10th Avenue, San Diego, CA
Ticket Prices: $20.00-$30.00
Web: moolelo.net
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Davis is a San Diego-based theatre critic. She may be contacted at carol.davis@sdjewishworld.com