Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Two new agenda-driven plays, urgently acted: Nelson Diaz-Marcano’s LAS BORINQUEÑAS and Kia Corthron’s FISH

• By drediman
• April 12, 2024
• No Comments

Over the course of the past week, I had the chance to catch two ambitious, agenda-driven plays that deal with issues primarily born from racial and socio-economic inequalities. Both world premiere Off-Broadway productions — although didactic and not quite fully formed — are urgently acted and land their issues with forceful impact. Read on for my thoughts.

FISH
Keen Company
Through April 20

First up at Theatre Row was Keen Company and Working Theater’s co-production of Fish by Kia Corthron (RECOMMENDED). In short, the new play addresses the significant deficiencies faced America’s public school system, particularly from the perspectives of two fictitious characters, Tree and her English teacher, Ms. Jasmine Harris. The play finds each character caught between a rock and a hard place — due to systemic roadblocks, neither can seem to constructively move forward in their respective capacities as student and instructor. Tree finds herself having to integrate — rather unsuccessfully — her turbulent personal/family life with the scholastic demands put upon her by her teachers. On the other hand, Ms. Harris finds it increasingly difficult to adequately fulfill her duties as an effective instructor teaching in a school burdened with limited resources. Although Corthron’s play occasionally dips into didacticism, it has good reason to — the issues it fleshes out are pressing matters, and they present in my mind the largest blocker between a certain socio-economic population and their fair shot at the American Dream. Thankfully, the direction by Adrienne D. Williams gives the world premiere production a sobering sense of occasion. The performances are very good, too. As Tree and Ms. Harris, Torée Alexandre and Rachel Leslie give impassioned performances that had me leaning forward with attention.

LAS BORINQUEÑAS
Ensemble Studio Theatre (in association with LatinX Playwrights Circle, Boundless Theater Company, and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation)
Through April 28

Then over at Ensemble Studio Theatre in Hell’s Kitchen, you’ll find Las Borinqueñas (RECOMMENDED), another co-production — this time amongst EST, LatinX Playwrights Circle, and Boundless Theater — that examines a little known episode in our country’s history. Set during the 1950s mostly in Puerto Rico, Nelson Diaz-Maracanos’s world premiere play tells the story of a group of Latinas who were essentially tricked into participating in a veiled birth control trial for the benefit of expediting the approval of “the pill”. As consequential collateral damage, these women — in effect guinea pigs — were subject to severe sickness, even potential death. In parallel with dramatizing these women’s plight, the play also ambitiously chronicles the top of the house politics and moral dilemmas wrapped up in the development of the game-changing drug. Throughout, the acting is rich and nuanced; it’s evident that the ensemble played a role in developing their respective characters, particularly the defiant Puerto Rican women on the ground. Given that the sprawling play is still in development — its disparate threads don’t completely hold together, and there’s the occasional heavy handedness — there’s still ample opportunity for the playwright and the creative team to continue to shape and sharpen the piece. Already, director Rebecca Aparicio does an admirable job of flicking back and forth between the two narrative thrusts, even wittily incorporating bits of vintage media into some of the scene transitions.