This is Drama Masks, a Bay Area performing arts column from a born San Franciscan and longtime theatre artist in an N95 mask. I talk venue safety and dramatic substance, or the lack thereof.
Recently, I interviewed SF Mime Troupe’s Micheal Gene Sullivan about the Troupe’s emergency fundraiser. Like all of us in the nonprofit world (particularly us unabashedly leftists), they’ve felt the sting of a leaner-than-usual spring donation season. Between an exhausting and expensive election season, 100 days of DOGE cuts, and the current tariff trouble, the Troupe’s in danger of cancelling their annual summer tour this year.
During our talk, Sullivan mentioned how he’d been in talks with the execs at major theatres who are worried about how they’ll get through this year, let alone this presidential term. Hell, if we could lose a nationally-renowned institution like Cal Shakes last year, what can we expect when the NEA is deliberately targeted? There’s serious damage being done from the White-House-on-down and people are desperate for answers. Some artistic catharsis (be it mere escapism or greater fulfillment) is needed now more than ever.
Yet, by the time I was done talking with Sullivan, I couldn’t help but feel that twinge of optimism I’ve often mentioned in this column. I asked him what the Troupe had planned, should they not get the entire amount they’re asking. “We will do something with whatever we have!” he told me. Come Hell or high water, they plan to shout to the heavens with as loud a voice as their resources can produce.
I take solace in that because it’s the sort of action that separates those who have something to say from those who just want to be seen talking. The latter can’t think outside of the two-thousand-dollar-a-plate gala crowd; the former know that if they can reach just two people that those two will reach two more, and so on. That’s the core of grassroots strength.
I’m not ignorant to the realities of capitalism and I know the power even a few donation can provide. The point I’m making is that if you’re wondering who will truly survive the mishegas of the modern era, it’ll be those of us for whom the message is the core. Those are the ones who have a habit of not shutting up.
SIMPLE MEXICAN PLEASURES WORLD PREMIERE AT NEW CONSERVATORY
Eric (Alex Rodriguez) wasn’t asking for too much, was he? The LA-based TV writer just decided to uproot his entire life and follow boyfriend Ryan to Seattle. All he was expecting was for Ryan to, y’know, not break up with him over the phone just as Eric was packing away the last of his things before the multi-state trip. Really, after that, you can’t blame the half-Chinese/half-Mexican writer for wanting to Eat Pray Love his way South of the Border (the first thing he does when he gets there is open Grindr). What he didn’t expect was “listening to the ancestors” to take on a literal meaning, as he finds himself learning about the cultures to which he has only a tangential connection. And yes, he meets a cute guy.
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Such is the plot of Simple Mexican Pleasures (world premiere through May 18 at New Conservatory, SF), Eric Reyes Loo’s queer Latine rom-com that name checks its inspirations regularly. (Eric the character immediately compares his phone break-up with Ryan to Carrie’s infamous break-up-via-Post-It from Sex in the City, and compares his trip to How Stella Got Her Groove Back.) Yet, it wisely avoids—mostly—the clichés of its influences by genuinely dedicating itself to Eric’s reconnection with his roots.
His mother (Marcia Aguilar) has an uncomfortable past with her birthland, so she intentionally separated her children from it. She constantly tries to discourage Eric from going with exaggerated tales of cartel kidnappings. Through the supernatural guidance of Eric’s Mexican and Chinese ancestors (Aguilar again, with Ricardo Cortes and Edric Young), our lovelorn hero is forced to face some uncomfortable truths about discomfort with that heritage and his own queerness.
It’s the latter that really hits, because it has depth and could easily have been overlooked for the sake of pleasing the audience. Granted, there’s very little in his talks with the unseen Ryan that indicate any self-hatred, but the scenes confronting that self-hatred have an all-too-familiar weight to them that rings true.
Under the guidance of Golden Thread’s Evren Odcikin, Loo’s script (dare one say “roman à clef”?) balances well its outlandish humor with its pathos. The two fit together like the many hidden parts of Kate Boyd’s Murphy-bed-laden set. Loo seems to push too hard for the happy ending, but this one is far enough from the rom-com standard to not seem completely unearned. Not every actor is chameleonic, but they really don’t all need to be. With every character played big, it’s enough that they aren’t grating. It’s an achievement that they’re endearing.
Not only was opening night delayed by an unidentified COVID infection amongst the cast, the new schedule saw NCTC jettison the show’s only “Enhanced Safety” performance which would have required masks. There were maybe two or three others masked on the new opening night. The NCTC’s smaller Walker Theatre did, I suppose, an OK job with its HVAC: during the nearly 90-min-show, my Aranet4’s CO² reading peaked at 1,301ppm, dropping to 1,283ppm by the final bow.
SIMPLE MEXICAN PLEASURES’ world premiere has been extended through May 18 at the New Conservatory Theater Center, SF. Tickets and further info here.
THE LAST OF THE LOVE LETTERS WEST COAST PREMIERE BY CROWDED FIRE
Much like the show above, Ngozi Anayanwu’s The Last of the Love Letters (West Coast premiere through May 3 at Z Below, SF) is a show very much about heartbreak. That’s what the two characters do: They talk about heartbreak. At great lengths and in excruciating detail. At first, that works in the play’s favor. By the end, it seems to be a conflicting thought trying to occupy the same brain.
Our piece begins on Brendan Yungert’s wonderfully confined set, which blurs the line between “prison cell” and “cheap apartment.” (Yes, I know I’m saying that in San Francisco.) Our first nameless character, You (Farrah Hamzeh) flirts with us, scorns us, and recounts to us the agony and ecstasy of their greatest love: the self-compromise; the hypocrisy; the comfort; the stability. It all rings true to everyone who’s ever opened their heart to someone else.
She then leaves the set before being replaced by YOU NO.2 (Gabriele Christian) who also talks. And talks and talks. His words are just as powerful, but his sequence goes on for so long that watching him borders on sadism. It isn’t helped by the fact that Anyanwu’s script, which has a very interesting backstory, eventually turns hard into sci-fi when it was more powerful as a meditative tome.
Fortunately, director Nailah Unole dida-Nese’ah Harper-Malveaux has better control of her talented cast (which also includes hodari blue) than Anyanwu seemed to have over her script. As such, the action remains captivating, even if it begins to drag on, at roughly 80 minutes. The final point made in the script holds chilling significance in our DOGE-ravaged world, but it’s an albatross around the neck of her own story of recounting lost love.
I was pleased to see more masks than expected opening night, even if it wasn’t that many. Z Below isn’t the open space of its warehouse counterpart above, so my Aranet4 hit 2,003ppm by the final bow. All the more reason to be grateful for so many masks. Even better: the curtain speech teased an on-demand video available around May 1.
THE LAST OF THE LOVE LETTERS’ West Coast premiere runs through May 3 at Z Below, SF. Tickets and further info here.
SHAMELESS HUSSY WORLD PREMIERE AT THE MARSH-SF
It’s official: I spent last week watching three shows about lost love. Go figure.
Lynne Kaufman’s Anaïs Nin bio Shameless Hussy (world premiere through May 11 at The Marsh-SF) is the playwright’s unabashed ode to the writer (Arwen Anderson) for whom “taboo” was a middle name. She’s seen sharing her heart and bed with a parade of men (Johnny Moreno) that range from her father to author Henry Miller.
As a ponderance on the ever-unknowable Nin, Kaufman’s speed-run is a well-acted, carefully-directed Cliff’s Notes take on a complex person. The one who hated the restrictions placed on her by men, but had no connection with the Women’s Lib movement that revered her. The one who longed for a stable relationship, but treated marriage like a weekly appointment. And yes, she wrote “naughty” stories. There are arguments (mostly by men) that her literary contributions are overblown, but can you honestly imagine a world without them?
Not many masks besides mine during the opening day show. My Aranet4 topped 1,283ppm by the final bow.
SHAMELESS HUSSY’s world premiere runs through May 11 at The Marsh-SF. Tickets and further info here.
