It’s all marvelously “cinematic,” as you’re challenged to keep track of where and when we are now, which keeps you riveted to the action on the stage.
Sunday, we swam over to Melrose Avenue to catch Middle of the World, Rogue Machine Theatre’s first production of its 16th season. Lucky us.
To start, a young, big-shot Wall Street broker grabs an uber for a ride in from the airport. Naturally, given his exalted station, he dismisses the driver, an older, simply dressed Latina.
But then, when he puts his phone down long enough to issue further instructions, the broker learns that his driver has several advanced degrees, can talk circles around him in at least two languages–and was once president of Ecuador!
And that’s just his and the audience’s first surprise as the play drives us forward from there.
Written by Juan José Alfonso and directed by Guillermo Cienfuego, this marvelously executed play operates on romantic, political, racial, and class levels all at once.
Written by Juan José Alfonso and directed by Guillermo Cienfuego, this marvelously executed play operates on romantic, political, racial, and class levels all at once.
Racial tensions are at play, as the driver is Latina, while the broker is African-America, with an Asian-American best friend at the brokerage house where they work. And the CIA agent who torments the driver is a fifth-generation Mexican American from El Paso who long ago left the Spanish language behind.
Then, the driver is nearly old enough to be the broker’s mother–and the broker has clawed himself up from a poverty the driver never really knew–none of which interferes with the budding romance between them that you could see coming when they sat down for their first uber ride together.
In liner notes, the playwright says two observations motivated this effort. First, in the many rideshare drives he has taken over the years, he has encountered one doctor or lawyer or teacher after another who needs to pick up extra income behind the wheel. Second, in recent decades, three left-leaning women became presidents of Brazil, Argentina, and Chile–a common sense advance the United States has yet to match.
We encourage you to read Ed Rampell’s more fulsome review here.
But let us comment quickly on World’s stagecraft. Time was when a play would be set someplace–a bedroom, streetcorner, or union hall–and the players would have to comment on things going on outside that single space.
But in World, by moving around a bit of furniture, quickly changing clothes, and turning around illuminated screens, the play jumps from uber, to coffee shop, to apartment, to law office, to presidential palace, to bedroom and back again–also jumping back to the past in Ecuador and up to the present in New York City.
It’s all marvelously “cinematic,” as the director said in the Sunday talk back afterwards. You’re challenged to keep track of where and when we are now, which keeps you riveted to the action on the stage.
And the cast and director richly deserve every bit of the standing ovation they got afterwards: Cheryl Umaña as Victoria Rojas, the driver; Christian Telesmar as Glenn Joyner, the broker; Leandro Cano as Bob Gonzales, the CIA agent; Dan Lin as Warren Lim, the best friend; and Jennifer Pollano as Barbara Blanchard, the driver’s lawyer.
Work on your backstroke to catch this one.
Middle of the World is performed Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. through March 4 at the Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Avenue, L.A., California, 90048. For reservations call 855.585.5185 or here.
