Off-B'way Review: The Other Americans; Mexodus

John Leguizamo and Luna Lauren Velez
in The Other Americans.
Credit: Joan Marcus

John Leguizamo has carved out a unique position for himself in the American theater with a series of riotously funny solo plays, including Freak, Spic-O-Rama, Sexaholix, and Ghetto Klown, documenting his experiences as an Hispanic citizen and performer. With his new play The Other Americans in which he also plays the lead at the Public Theater, Leguizamo attempts to branch out and depict the impact of blindly pursuing the American Dream on a Latino family in terms of traditional narrative drama. His heart and intentions are in the right place and the first act has some strong moments, but his plot is too melodramatic and contrived, borrowing too heavily from previous similar works, particularly Arthur Miller’s classic Death of a Salesman. The playwright’s performance and that of the tight ensemble and Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s muscular staging are proficient and professional, but the play feels thin and forced.

Like Miller’s Willy Loman, August Wilson’s Troy Maxon in Fences, and O’Neill’s Hickey from The Iceman Cometh, Leguizamo’s protagonist Nelson Castro is a self-deluded hustler. A would-be big-shot who always has a lucrative scheme in the works, Nelson is actually a bankrupt businessman whose fanciful deals are more hot air than solid planning. The setting is the Castro family’s expensive home in Forrest Hills, Queens (beautiful design by Arnulfo Maldonado) where Nelson and his wife Patti (marvelously maternal Luna Lauren Velez) are nervously awaiting the homecoming of their son Nick (appropriately volatile Trey Santiago-Hudson) after a stay in a mental health facility. It’s gradually revealed Nick is suffering from post-traumatic stress from a vicious attack by white racists. They are joined by daughter Toni (spunky Rebecca Jimenez) and her fiancee Eddie (adorably nerdy Bradley James Tejeda), and Nelson’s more successful sister Norma (intense Rosa Evangelina Arredondo) and family friend Veronica (funny Sarah Nina Hayon). 

The first act proceeds strongly enough with generous dollops of social commentary and observations on the Hispanic struggle to get ahead in white-dominated America. Nelson has bought the house in ritzy Forest Hills where Patti feels out of place and longs to return to their previous digs in the more affordable Latino enclave of Jackson Heights. Evidently we’re in the 1990s or the early 2000s before Jackson Heights become super-gentrified, indicated by references to certain Mets baseball players and the old-fashioned flip phones everyone uses. There is no reference to time of the play in the program. Here the interactions of the family ring true and Leguizamo has written tangy dialogue. The interactions between father Nelson and son Nick are particularly powerful as the former tries to force his vision of success on the latter.

John Leguizamo in The Other Americans.
Credit: Joan Marcus

But the second act turns cliched. Through a series of credulity-straining coincidences, Nelson winds up destroying his personal and business futures. Too many of the plot devices echo Death of a Salesman. Nick has an explosive encounter with a potential employer just like Will Loman’s son Biff. At a climactic moment Patti rebels at cleaning up the messes made by the men in her life just like Willy’s wife Linda. A tragic death rips the family apart just as with the Lomans. Perhaps Leguizamo meant these plot turns as a tribute to Miller’s play, but it comes across as a weak echo. The playwright has attempted to explore Latin-American experience but does not go deeply enough.

Nygel D. Robinson and Brian Quijada in
Mexodus. Credit: Curtis Brown

While The Other Americans is a retread of Miller, Mexodus, the two-character musical at the Minetta Lane, is a totally original and bracingly different exploration of Latino and African-American history. Combining rap, hip-hop and salsa with live looping techniques, author-actors Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson enact the untold story of African-American slaves escaping south of the border into Mexico. The performer-playwrights use composite characters to enact this little-know aspect of American and Mexican history. Henry (Robinson), a runaway slave flees across the Rio Grande after killing his master in self-defense. He finds his way to the ranch managed by Carlos (Quijada) and together they rescue each other from the oppressive forces of nature and cruel oppressors. Director David Mendizabal (who also designed the period-melding costumes) stages the musical like a rousing rap concert and a gripping story. Robinson and Quijada enact and narrate the tale powerfully as well expertly playing a host of instruments. Mikhail Fiksel is credited with sound design and looping systems architecture, building an all-encompassing acoustic environment as the actors establish riffs and licks and incorporate them into the narrative, weaving them into a captivating score. Some of the rap lyrics went by too fast for me, but their gist was clear. Mextly Couzin’s sensationally vital lighting and Johnny Moreno’s jagged projections transform Riw Rakkulchon’s rustic set into a frenetic, frazzling and exciting history lesson.       

The Other Americans: Sept. 25—Nov. 23. Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., NYC. Running time: two hours and 15 mins. including intermission. publictheater.org.

Mexodus: Sept. 18—Nov. 1. Minetta Lane Theater, 18 Minetta Lane, NYC. Running time: 90 mins. with no intermission. ticketmaster.com.