John Leguizamo and Luna Lauren Velez in The Other Americans. Photo: Joan Marcus
“Be warned, it is a powerful piece,” said John Leguizamo in an interview about The Other Americans, his new play at the Public Theater.
He’s right.
The Other Americans wields its power and passion in many ways–most significantly as a family play about the American Dream…from the Latino perspective. It also deals with other vital themes: racism, capitalism—or what Leguizamo calls “America’s rigged system” against non-whites—and toxic masculinity.
All this richness comes from a writer/performer known primarily for his hilarious, provocative one-man shows, most recently Latin History for Morons, about his Latino American identity (he was born in Colombia). But with The Other Americans, Leguizamo is journeying into an entirely new form, ensemble drama, because he has something urgent to say about America and Latino Americans in specific.
Set in Queens in 1998, the play tells the story of Nelson Castro, a father who is struggling desperately to be a success and keep his laundromat afloat. At the same time, Nelson is dealing with his college-age son’s breakdown after being the victim of a vicious racist hate crime, performed by a group of white youths. Played by Leguizamo himself, Nelson is fiercely ambitious—he’s able to move his family from their modest beginnings in Jackson Heights to the more suburban Queens neighborhood of Forest Hills, with the purchase of a larger laundromat chain. But he’s overstretched financially—and now, drowning in debt, must beg his sister for another loan to keep his new enterprise afloat.
Nelson’s predicament escalates on the night that the family gathers to welcome home Nick (Trey Santiago-Hudson), son of Nelson and Patti (Luna Lauren Velez), who dropped out of school after the assault and has spent the last seven months in a psychiatric hospital. Nick is the first in his family to attend college, and his parents are desperate for him to return and continue his higher education. Clashes erupt, however, between family members over conflicting agendas. Nelson wants to convince his sister Norma (Rosa Evangelina Arredondo) to give him the loan. Patti wants to focus on the return of her son instead. But Nick wants to talk his parents about the specific events of his attack, as a step toward healing recommended by his doctors.
It takes the entire two acts of this gripping drama to play out the respective confrontations among the various characters. During that time, a terrible truth is revealed: a shocking lie that Nelson has told in the aftermath of Nick’s attack. That lie has a devastating effect on the entire family, especially Nick.
Directed by Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson, the show features a superb, all-Latino cast on an elaborate set designed by Arnulfo Maldonado, including the interior of the Castro home plus a glimpse of the exterior and a swimming pool that Nelson has installed (to please his son).
The actors are uniformly excellent. Other characters include Nick’s spirited sister Toni (Rebecca Jimenez), her agreeable fiancé Eddie (Bradley James Tejeda), and Veronica, a friend from the old neighborhood (Sarah Nina Hayon). All the performances are as engaging as they are moving, providing lots of laughs and massive entertainment despite the play’s high stakes (including fabulous dancing by the whole company, choreographed by Lorna Venture, and original music by Ricky Gonzalez).
For those of you who know John Leguizamo’s work, it will be no surprise that you can’t take your eyes off him (and he’s onstage for all of Act I and much of Act II). This is a charismatic performer who feels totally at home and at ease on the stage, and both his performance and his playwriting are passionate, heartfelt, and laudable. The script is laced with frequent phrases in Spanish, which adds to the richness and flavor of the dialogue.
At times during the play, I felt as though I were watching a new version of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, one of the greatest family dramas in the American theatre, featuring similar themes of the American Dream, ambition, success—and the sins of the father being visited upon the son. Indeed, the father/son confrontations between Nelson and Nick reminded me of similar scenes between Willy and Biff in Salesman, as well as Troy and Cory in August Wilson’s Fences. (There are also the scenes between James Tyrone and his sons in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which deals with the immigrant experience.) In addition, the scene between Nelson and Patti reminded me of a similar one between Willy and Linda Loman, his beleaguered wife who (like Patti) gets lost in the struggle between father and son.
But I don’t mean to imply that Leguizamo is imitating these great American family plays. Rather, I believe he has been inspired by them to create a worthy new drama that deserves a rightful place among these works in dramatizing the consequences to the Latino American family as it chases the American Dream.