Reviewed by Martίn Hernández
Los Angeles Theatre Center
Through May 18.
RECOMMENDED
Based on Helen Thorpe’s 2009 book, Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America, Karen Zacarίas’ s non-fiction play is an amusing, sober, and ultimately enraging look at the racist immigration policies of the United States. Despite some political and structural flaws, Zacarίas offers a searing defense for people forced to flee their homelands, mostly due to torment inflicted by the very country they are fleeing to.
Marisela (Blanca Isabella), Yadira (Newt Arlandiz), Clara (Noelle Franco), and Elissa (Valerie Rose Vega), four high school seniors and amigas mejores para siempre living in Denver, Colorado, face an uncertain future as they come close to graduation. No matter how outstanding their grades or how hard they work, they are treated like pariahs by the White people in their supposedly liberal city. It is even worse for Marisela and Yadira, who are undocumented, coming having arrived here as youngsters with their parents from Mexico.
When journalist Helen Thorpe (Elyse Mirto) shadows the girls for a newspaper story, she reluctantly gets enmeshed in their lives. Helen, who herself emigrated from Ireland as a child, empathizes and encourages the girls’ dreams of a better future. But having grown up Latina, working poor, and darker skinned, their chances of getting into college are slim, and even slimmer for Marisela and Yadira.
That Thorpe is married to John Hickenlooper, Denver’s Democratic mayor, is a plus – and a minus. When Clara and Elissa do get accepted to college, cracks develop in the quartet’s bond, so a sympathetic Thorpe aids Marisela and Yadira in getting into a local private university. Ultimately, the girls find divergent ways to maneuver in a majority White world. Marisela rises to the forefront to challenge a rising wave of anti-immigrant fervor that threatens to break the friends’ longtime ties forever.
But whose story is being told? Is it Marisela’s as she goes from a club-hopping cha-cha to powerful – and still cha-cha – activist, angrily schooling a comically clueless White student (a daffy Sari Sanchez in one of her outstanding multiple roles) on what being poor is like? Or is it Helen’s, the proverbial White savior who may also be an immigrant but eventually learns that her story is different from Marisela’s, who contentiously explains the difference? Also, while the real Helen did author the book, the character’s constant presence as narrator and observer – she is hardly ever offstage – dilutes the compelling stories of las chicas.
While both political parties’ embrace “border control” as a campaign issue, here it is Republicans who are the bad guys, evidenced by cartoonish portrayals of right-wing Colorado congressperson Tom Tancredo (Oscar Emmanual Fabela) and Aspen anti-immigration activist Mike McGarry (Saul Rodriguez). Also, Zacarίa’s play holds to the naïve fantasy embraced by many people of color in the United States that White Americans will embrace us only – as the title of the book and play suggest – if they think we are “just like them.” But the current ruthlessness being visited on the undocumented in 2025, emboldened by decades of bipartisan legislation, exposes the fallacy of that notion.
What compensates for these issues is the compelling work of the actors portraying the girls and the show’s flashy production values. Isabella is impressive as Marisela, who evolves from a flighty teen to an ardent – and at times shrill – organizer. Arlandiz is touching as Yadira, unexpectedly faced with caring for a younger sister while also juggling work and college. Brenda Banda also does stellar work, playing both Marisela’s and Yadira’s mothers and the girls’ dorky but loving teacher.
François-Pierre Coutoure’s set, Xinyuan Li’s lighting, and Hsuan-Kuang Hsieh’s projections create phantasmagoric moments in director Fidel Gomez’s vibrant staging. Lighted orbs of assorted sizes are placed on stage for the characters to circle, literally and metaphorically. Marissa Herrera’s choreography, get toes a tapping, gritos trumpeted, and tears streaming as the performers dance to the rousing cumbia, ranchera, andbanda music. ịHechale, hechale y orale pues!
Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., downtown LA.; Thurs.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 4 pm; thru May 18. latinotheaterco.org Running time two hours with a 10 minute intermission.
