Reviewed by Odalys Nanin
CASA 0101
Through Sept. 21
RECOMMENDED
Twelve new 10-minute plays each honor the life and legacy of the renowned Mexican pitcher who became a superstar for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Fernando Valenzuela.
This anthology/festival in two acts is not just a celebration of one athlete, but a cultural, social and political immersion into the Chicano/a movement of the 1980s in East Los Angeles. It’s an educational journey into the past, where each play reveals how its characters’ lives & perspectives are transformed by the achievement of one extraordinary man.
Nicknamed “El Toro” (The Bull) in 1979, he was signed by the Dodgers and made his debut in 1980 at age 20 becoming a World Series champion in 1981. Valenzuela batted and threw left-handed with his signature screwball pitch. He became a media icon with a fan base world-wide. At age 63 he died in 2024, just two weeks before artist Robert Vargas unveiled a large mural of Fernando in Boyle Heights. Josefina López was so inspired that she wrote a poem after the mural’s dedication, and later her 10-minute play “Fernandomania Forever,” which serves as the through-line connecting all of the 12 plays.
We see three large, standing screens on which projected images projected indicate the location of each play. López’s work, directed by Emmanuel Deleage, explores Robert Vargas’s (Eugene Antonio Negrete) artistic process while painting on a scaffold for days leading to the unveiling of his huge mural on November 2024. López writes herself in as one of the characters (Evelyn Menchaca) within her own play. Her main focus is honoring the artist who tirelessly paints the mural while racing against time, given Valenzuela’s mortal illness at the time.
“Linda” by Maria Valenzuela is directed by Carmelita Maldonado. The author is the youngest daughter of Fernando Valenzuela, and her play is a love song to her parents, Linda (Yasha Alaniz) & Fernando (Edward Navarrete). “From Somewhere” by Jose Luis Lopez Jr. (directed by Carmelita Maldonado) concerns immigrant parents who are not into baseball yet they honor and love Valenzuela because “he is one of us!”
In “Beisbol y Novelas” (“Baseball & Mexican Soap Operas”) by Ignacio Gonzalez, Jaime (Gabriela Pedraza) and her abuela (Laura Vega) clash over the only TV in the house whenever his Dodgers game and her soap operas are televised at the same time. Wittily written, this is one of the funnier plays with a stellar performance by Pendraza; she plays a little boy named Jaime so well that I forgot that he was a she! The play is cleverly directed by Maldonado with a focus on comedic timing. In “No Sabo” (“I don’t know”) by Oscar Arguello (directed by Deleage), A young boy denies his Mexican heritage until his mother points out the similarities between him and Fernando Valenzuela. Celina Martinez’s “A Good Hero” focuses on Felicia Marquez (Pedraza) a professor suffering from chronic illness. She calls upon the spirit of her Cuban father, Juan (Eugene Antonio Negrete), to reminisce about watching Fernando Valenzuela on television. Her father was a pitcher when he played in Cuba. This is a heartfelt story between a father & daughter, told from beyond the grave and well directed by Karla Ojeda.
Michael St. Onge’s “Once Upon A Time in LA” (directed by Ojeda) focuses on a 10-year-old boy, Victor (Alejandro Reynoso) and his Mexican grandfather Alfonso (Martin Morales) embark on a journey across Los Angeles to see Fernando Valenzuela pitch. They find healing in their shared quest to fulfill a broken promise. “Nando” by Gloria Isabel Briseño (directed by Maldonado) features the eponymous character as the playwright’s deceased brother, Fernando Ochoa who died August 2024 and was named after Fernando Valenzuela. Two siblings, Isabel (Itzel Ocampo) and Nando (Jose Nateras), take their yearly hike up Elysian Hills into a world of ghosts. This beautiful and well-performed play explores essences of grieving, and Ocampo’s delicate and sometimes cracking voice rings true as it projects her deep pain over the loss of her brother.
In “La Habra Ass Foos” by Christopher John Magallanes and directed by Vance Valencia, Gabe (Edward Navarrete) changes himself to fit the Chicano stereotype while his friends Johnny ( Gabriel Montoya) & Robert (Jose Nateras) try to convince him to be true to himself. The over the top characterization of being a Chicano is well performed by Navarrete creating a fun piece of entertainment. Kimberly Huff’s “Safe at Home” is also directed by Valencia; Kathryn (Veli Gonzalez) grapples with the whiteness of her skin since she is of Mexican decent. She talks about being a fan of Valenzuela and the great influence the baseball player had on immigrants, especially since the Dodgers organization stayed silent during the recent I.C.E. raids. Set in a park in East Los Angeles, Dr. Connie Valencia’s “Our Playground” (Vance Valencia directs) homes in on four childhood friends who play baseball; unexpectedly one of them, an ex-baseball player, signs them up to play as a professional baseball team, forcing a nervous Cassandra (Adlih Alvarado) to confront her anxieties. She prays for Valenzuela to help her. This funny, well-written play recalls the film, A League of Their Own. The ensemble (Gabriela Pedraza, Evelyn Menchaca, Phoenix Marroquin, and Edward Navarrete (Fernando’s spirit) work well as a unit, underscoring the idea that friendship comes first.
Closing out this festival, Karla Ojeda directs Chris Banda’s “Blue Day,” which features a different quartet: Four siblings sift through their deceased father’s possessions when they unexpectedly uncover a long buried memento that sparks a journey of healing among them. In this touching play, the discovery of a baseball glove belonging to their father takes them back to a time when a blue day was actually a good day.
These short plays are about how Fernando Valenzuela’s accomplishments change the perspective of each of the characters, not only to connect them to their roots but to never give up hope for a better future. After all, our own immigrant parents did exactly what Fernando did; they left everything behind to follow a dream, regardless of the daunting odds. Our heroes are our teachers.
CASA 0101, 2102 E. Second Street, Boyle Heights; Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 3 pm; thru Sept. 21. www.casa0101.org
