La Egoista
Reviewed by Iris Mann
Skylight Theatre
Through April 9
This story of two very different sisters struggling to connect and reawaken childhood bonds is a mixture of stand-up comedy and drama. The approach by playwright Erlina Ortiz is inventive, but the overall presentation fails to ignite.
The title, La Egoista, refers to a selfish person, or an egotist. It is how the sisters’ late mother would refer to her older daughter, Josephina, or Jo (Lys Perez), an ambitious comedian who ends up using her mother’s death and her family’s peculiarities as fodder for her comedy act. Jo’s routine is irreverent and bawdy, but one of the problems with the play is that the act isn’t really funny or witty, although the first night audience, heavy with family and friends, laughed enthusiastically.
While Jo seems to joke about everything, her younger sister, Betsaida, or Bet (Chanel Castañeda), is a very serious, religious Jehovah’s Witness who took care of their dying mother while Jo was largely absent.
One night, in the middle of her act, Jo gets several calls from her sister. When she finally answers she finds out that her sister is in the hospital, suffering from a digestive disease. Bet needs surgery and Jo then struggles between her ambition to further her career and her obligation to look after Bet, who sometimes calls Jo out for what she considers her older sister’s selfishness.
Ortiz has taken this opportunity to highlight the difficulty of navigating the medical and insurance systems. She has also constructed the scenes between the sisters meaningfully, much more successfully than she has written the comedy monologues (despite Perez’s authoritative delivery of them). And while the interaction between the sisters is written truthfully, director Daphnie Sicre has not established the requisite dramatic tension or gravity, resulting in a kind of apathy as to what happens to the characters.
In addition, the actors interact directly with members of the audience, diluting the play’s emotional impact with a layer of frivolity. Another device is the use of hand puppets (adorably designed by Christine Papalexis) to stand in for actual characters, such as a doctor in the hospital. While Perez and Castañeda handle the puppets well, their use further trivializes the play’s essences.
Perez does strong work as a strong character, but Castañeda, while properly delicate and weak during Bet’s sickest moments, gives an ill-defined performance that blunts some of Bet’s confrontational episodes with Jo.
It must be noted that set designer Stephen Gifford has done an impressive job. Sliding doors backing the empty stage on which Jo performs her comedy act open to reveal, by turns, a beautifully appointed living room and a hospital room.
There is a good deal of potential in this play. With some rewriting of the comedy monologues and more directorial emphasis on the underlying urgency, the play’s essential conflict could come to the fore with considerable strength.
Skylight Theatre, 1816 ½ N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles; Fri.-Sat., 8:30 pm; Sun., 3 pm; Mon., 7:30 pm; through Apr. 9. (213) 761-7061 or https://SkylightTix.org. Running time: 95 minutes with no intermission.
