By Daniel Buckwalter
This doesn’t happen often, but occasionally I run into a music or theater performance that I find profound, yet I wouldn’t even know where to begin to describe it or offer context.
That’s fair, especially given the fact that I’m your prototypical balding white middle-age male remarking on an insightful theater experience on a topic of which I know only the headlines.
In this instance, I may not be as clueless as the character Dylan, but the play Los Dreamers, which I saw over the weekend, reminded me of my secure status in this crazy society and how little I know of the fears of both documented and undocumented men, women and children of color.
Los Dreamers, a play written by Mónica Sánchez and directed by Malek Najjar, has three more performances at Robinson Theatre at the University of Oregon, and I strongly encourage everyone to see it for the humanity Sánchez gives the characters who live in constant fear of arrest and deportation.
They are dreamers, every last one of them, who have come to this country to explore the possibilities of growth, financial or spiritual, in peace from any manner of chaos left behind, and they want to be left alone to pursue their dreams.
In Los Dreamers, that’s especially true of Petra (Laila Ortega) and her law-school student daughter Penelope, otherwise known as Scoobi (Monse Quesada Gonzalez).
Petra has always been undocumented. A young Petra (Aixa Gutiérrez) returns to Mexico to deliver supplies for the 12-day, 1994 Zapatista rebellion in Mexico. There, she meets Ramiro (Victor Rodriguez), a commander for the Zapatista National Liberation Front, and they have a love affair. Petra becomes pregnant and gives birth to Penelope in Mexico with the assistance of Adela (Kiana Sarai Gutierrez Calderon).
But Ramiro is killed in the rebellion. Petra crosses the border and raises Penelope, whose own first love, Roko (Manny Rojas Meza), is killed serving in the U.S. military.
Late in the play, Adela dies, and all three serve as ghost-protectors for Petra and Penelope, fleshing out the fears and aspirations — not to mention the trauma of loss — of both mother and daughter during these frightening times where each has to constantly look over their shoulder and not answer the door.
This is where Sánchez’s play truly works for me, and the play ends well enough for both Petra, who self-deports to work in the Mexican countryside, and Penelope, thanks to the often clueless white college student Dylan (Evan Stalnaker), whom she marries, and together they sell the marriage to an immigration official.
But Los Dreamers also is a political reminder of the harrowing tension that people of color, documented or not, feel daily. An ICE agent (Percy Johnson) is ever present in the play, as is the fear he generates.
Los Dreamers is a complex play — romantic, comedic and sometimes politically edgy, gentle and sometimes fierce. It also is a must-see play, and, again, I would urge everyone to attend.
Los Dreamers at the University of Oregon
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, June 4 and 5, and 2 p.m. Sunday on June 6
Where: Robinson Theatre, University of Oregon, 1585 E. 13th Ave., Eugene
Tickets: ticket.uoregon.edu/los-dreamers/
