Brown & Out IV 

Review by Neal Weaver 
Casa 0101 
Through March 4  

This is Casa 0101’s 4^th collection of short plays exploring the LGBTQ+ scene from the Latinx point of view. The participating writers include Abel Alvarado, Corky Dominguez, Claudia Duran, Josefina Lopez, Jaime Mayorquin, Raymond Arturo Perez, Matthew Benjamin Ramos, Gilbert Salazar, Richard Billegas, Jr. and Patricia Zamorano.

The plays deal with a wide sampling of gay-oriented issues, ranging from fear of aging, gay-straight relationships, difficulties of coming out to closed-minded conventional parents, AIDS, inter-generational conflicts among gay activists, reliance on sex-toys, and relations between “muxers” (male oriented lesbians) and those who are female oriented. The press materials and program notes are so committed to politically correct terminology that one virtually needs a glossary to keep track of the unfamiliar terms. They become a political minefield. So, any politically incorrect locutions are purely unintentional.

In such an eclectic group of plays as this, the quality of the work is uneven. But though there is a certain amount of reliance on gay stereotypes, and there is no one work that can be described as totally new or ground-breaking, the overall entertainment quotient is very high. Almost all of the plays are enlightening or amusing. The performance level is uneven, but there is much good work by all. Particularly noteworthy is Giovanni Navarro both as a seductive barber and as a gay man whose lover (Karlo Ishibashi) is a guilt-ridden Jehovah’s Witness.

The set design by Cesar Retina-Holguin relies on a handsome set of moving, Mondrian-like panels.

Casa 0101 Theater, 2102 East First Street, Boyle Heights. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 5 p.m. For mature audiences. (323) 263-7684 or www.casa0101.org. Running time: Two hours, with one 15 minute intermission.