Yadira Correa, Danaya Esperanza, and Claudia Ramos Jordán in O.K.! Photo: Valerie Terranova

O.K.! tries to be all things to all people, packing in the genres, messages, and tones: rueful backstage satire meets urgently timely political drama meets heartfelt ethical dilemma meets thoughtful cultural representation meets exuberantly theatrical mysticism. It’s a lot to do in 90 minutes, and it’s not surprising that some of these elements are more successful than others, nor that sometimes playwright Christin Eve Cato’s competing imperatives tip over into incompatible conflict: the desire to go deep on the political messaging sitting uneasily aside the broad humor; the nuanced character work mingling oddly with the wilder fantasy sequences. 

The backstage satire takes us to Guthrie, Oklahoma, in June 2022, in the dressing room of O.K.!, a non-union unauthorized semi-bilingual knockoff of Oklahoma! that’s “a parody of Mexican and Puerto Rican cowboys who want to open the town’s first tequila and rum bar.” This dressing room is shared by three of the principal women, all Latine, and they are as offended by this as you might expect. Cato and director Melissa Crespo know the look and feel of this particular species of penny-pinching tour in all its inglorious details: the lack of understudies and lightbulbs and per diems; the semi-functioning air-conditioning; the intentionally unauthorized parody that avoids licensing fees; the musty period costumes and actors lacing one another into corsets because there’s no dressers—but they also understand the post-Covid hunger to work that’s drawn three Latine NY actresses and one supremely competent stage manager doing four crew members’ jobs to bumfuck Oklahoma to get underpaid for a shitty show. The design team, too, brings us into this environment, especially Lux Haac’s intentionally fusty costumes with their stereotypically offensive accessories for the play-within-the-play and Daniela Hart/Uptownworks’ sound design, with its smart use of the stage monitor. And Rodrigo Escalante’s set extends to the lobby and entrance so that the audience wends its way through backstage to reach the playing area–and I could swear I caught a whiff of hay scent.

Cato knows character, too; ably aided by Crespo and the cast, she’s built an ensemble whose mannerisms and relationships feel lived-in, while still allowing for a little humorous exaggeration. Jolie (Yadira Correa) and Melinda (Danaya Esperanza), both in their late thirties and existentially shook by the almost-two-year shutdown of their profession, are backed into a “work is work” mindset, even if that means the thirty-something Jolie is caking on the old-age makeup to play “Titi Elder la Vieja,” the Aunt Eller analogue whose character name is literally “old woman” (she’s also a curandera and an undercover Mexican revolutionary; don’t ask). And Elena (Claudia Ramos Jordán), twenty-five, was close to admitting this career won’t work out and returning to Puerto Rico. Ingenue Elena, with her fluid shuttle between Spanish and English, may have a few more stars left in her eyes than the other two about both theater and men, but knows how to take care of herself. Her willful avoidance of the news (her social media feed is curated down to cats, recipes, and self-care tips) makes her seem naive, but she’s neither flighty nor dumb. Jolie and Melinda are old friends, but at that boundary between work friends and friend friends, where there’s still a little tentativeness about how far you trust someone and what it’s safe to tell them–but they’re palpably closer to each other than to Elena, whom both of them watch with a slightly exasperated fondness. And Melinda’s going through something neither her castmates nor stage manager Alex (Christina Pitter) know about: she’s unexpectedly pregnant, with, as we quickly find out, an abortion appointment scheduled on a date that turns out to be a few days after Oklahoma’s brand new abortion ban kicks in. 

When the play begins, Melinda has just found out her appointment is canceled, and her distress is evident enough that Elena and Jolie soon learn what’s going on. (They try to hide it from Alex for a while, with mixed results, both because Alex is very, very good at their job and because they’re not very good at keeping secrets.) It’s when Cato starts to really delve into the issues involved in Melinda’s decision that the play starts to feel didactic and lose the natural feel in its relationships. The issues are urgent and Cato’s interest in explicating them with nuance is clearly passionate, but in trying to lay out all the enraging complexities of not only Melinda’s situation but adjacent issues about women’s health, the play gets bogged down in exposition or explanation: About the deep psychic wounds at the root of Melinda’s state of mind. About the ins and outs of the new law. About Jolie’s own complex relationship with abortion, sexual assault, and motherhood. About the history of disregard of women’s reproductive health. About the greater risks of maternal mortality for women of color. 

And on top of all that, there’s one more tonally different layer: Jolie does a quick Tarot card reading to help Melinda’s thought process, and in a sharp left turn into nonrealism, the figures on the cards come to life to give advice. (There have been faint hints of the supernatural, mostly with flickering lights, but nothing like this.) Pitter, playing all three of the embodied cards in increasingly elaborate costumes, goes from no-nonsense avatar of competence in crew blacks to hamming it up gloriously as the ninja-esque machete-wielding figure on the Two of Swords, the gold-sparkle-bedecked Sphinx from the Wheel of Fortune, and the serene, robed High Priestess. These sequences are theatrically creative in a whole new way, with Escalante’s set revealing all sorts of previously hidden secrets, but the often platitude-filled advice seems to come from a different play.

Ultimately, Cato, Crespo, and the ensemble make us care about these characters–but after throwing everything and the kitchen sink into the story, the final resolution still feels both tidy and rushed. There’s a lot to ponder in O.K.!, but too many places to look at once.