Christopher Moncayo-Torres and Nancy Moncayo (photo by Mallury Patrick Photography)
Reviewed by Molly McLean
Outside In Theatre
Thru October 6
RECOMMENDED
Abel Torres and Christopher Moncayo-Torres (Photo by Mallury Patrick Photography)
When a storyteller writes about their family, you may wonder what the unseen, offstage subjects of the story think of the enterprise. If you’re such a worrier, your mind will rest easy during this new “solo-ish” show, as actual members of writer-performer Christopher Moncayo-Torres’s family are present onstage.
In the first act, Moncayo-Torres recounts with taut emotional beats the reconciliation he’s undergone with his father since his childhood. His father, Abel Torres, plays himself in these vignettes.
Moncayo-Torres is an adept solo performer. He improvises off various audience member’s reactions, knowing well how to control the room. As the audience enters, Moncayo-Torres keeps them engaged, asking various people to translate, to write, etc. And during the show, we are engaged through playing various parts, jokes that discomfort and delight: One moment from the beginning: he asks an audience member to translate the phrase “You still owe me child support” directly to the actor’s father)
The flimsy-chic set (by Saul A. Diaz) inventively uses everyday materials like boxes to let Moncayo-Torres’s storytelling abilities shine and keep the story exciting (the boxes transform many times).
The second act debuts in this run. (The first half was a solo show which debuted in 2024.). Moncayo-Torres adds onto the story by including his mother. They initially chat on a WhatsApp video call. He asks her for help cooking seco de pollo, an iconic Ecuadorean dish. She playfully admonishes him. He calls his sister, and another sister comes onstage. They discuss what it was like growing up together.
He re-enacts moments between the mother and son, but compared to the first act, when his relatives were in the room instead of thousands of miles away, the reenactment seems less thrilling.
Eventually, they all get on a call with Moncayo-Torres’s mom. It is difficult at times to communicate, they have to speak through translators and get the Internet just right.
Here, the story loses its focus, adding in all these other voices. His mom and him seem to have less to resolve. As she put it, looking back on the protagonist’s childhood, “Well, we survived.”
Still, the risk-taking keeps the energy of the story and the solo performer high, as good improvisation always does. It feels risky, too, having the subject of the story onstage with the writer. And the first half of the play, developed throughout 2024, is exciting throughout.
Outside in Theatre-Art Space, 5317 York Rd., Highland Park. Opens Sun. Sept. 20; Sat., Mon.-Tues., 8 pm, Sun., 3 pm; thru Oct. 6. https://tinyurl.com/5n6nvrzw Run Time: 2 hours, including a 15 minute intermission.
