The Concrete Jungle (A Chicano Horror Play)
Reviewed by Martίn Hernández
The Loft Ensemble
Through April 23
“Man is divided in two,” a character declares early on in Travyz Santos Gatz’s adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s In The Jungle of the Cities, with that division depicted as a metaphoric boxing match between Capital and Labor. The original play came early in Brecht’s career and while he may not have been as steeped in Marxism as he was later in life, his insight into the exploitive nature of capitalism was evident at the time of his work’s 1923 debut. That fervent message, unfortunately, gets a spotty delivery in co-directors Mitch Rosander’s and Ignacio Navarro’s enthusiastic but uneven production.
In a contemporary anonymous metropolis, Slink (Matt Lorenzo) has worked his way up from street hustler to wealthy steel magnate, not bad for an ambitious young Black man. But what he thinks is a playful encounter with lowly Latino immigrant Jorge (Alejando Mungaray), turns into an epic struggle between the two, with fortunes rising and falling for each, even to trading places as boss and worker, and both set upon by cops, landlords, and, of course, lawyers.
On the sidelines are Jorge’s sister Maria (alternate Kathleen Guevara), grandmother Nana (Berenice Diaz), and girlfriend Jane (Sydney Faye Jenkins), now all desperate for money since former breadwinner Jorge lost his job due to Slick’s action. With the entrance of the aptly named Worm (Jordan Klomp), the proprietor of a “fine establishment,” the younger women are faced with joining the dubious profession of the oldest kind. Meanwhile, Nana turns a blind eye on the shameful path her beloved nieta may need to take to put food on the table.
Perhaps in keeping with Brecht’s theory that theater is meant to spark self-reflection from the audience rather than complacent catharsis, the co-directors’ staging has cast members mostly facing forward and delivering lines to the audience rather than each other. The attempt at the didactic gets tedious at times, possibly resulting in the stilted line deliveries, jumped lines, missed cues, and botched entrances of some in the ensemble. Gatz skewers immigration policy, gentrification, misogyny, police abuse and the race, gender, and class divides that can shackle any meaningful challenge to The System. But the critiques are scattered, with meager exploration.
The production’s humor does make up for some of its foibles. From surrealistic performances to clownish costumes, such as the garish flag shirt on a gun shop owner (Lemon Baardsen) and Worm’s stereotypical pimp’s fur coat and hat, from absurdist slides describing the upcoming scene action or location to Nana’s Spanish profanities, there are some laugh out loud moments. The actors’ heartfelt rendering of Gatz’s poetic lines between scene transitions also help to placate us from the bumps they deliver along the way.
Loft Ensemble, 11031 Camarillo Street, N. Hollywood.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; thru April 23. www.loftensemble.org
