Playwright: Octavio Solis
At: Teatro Vista at Victory Gardens
Greenhouse, 2257 N. Lincoln
Phone: 773-871-3000; $15-$35
Runs through: May 4
BY SCOTT C. MORGAN
Dreamlandia is exactly the kind of play that Teatro Vista should be producing. The play endeavors to explore contentious issues of immigration, economics and Mexico-U.S. relations. ( Photo courtesy of Teatro Vista )
Problem is that Dreamlandia playwright Octavio Solis meanders so much with his weird and posturing plotting that it becomes a wearisome place to visit by the end. And that's despite Teatro Vista's insightful and darkly funny staging by director Cecilie Keenanwith and an acting ensemble that gives impassioned performances.
Dreamlandia is Solis' messy, magical realist portrait of an extremely dysfunctional family that straddles the border between El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico. And this isn't just any family—it's a metaphorical one that damningly shows the contrasting mindsets between the two countries and how the U.S. exploits its southern neighbor.
Dreamlandia begins with a violent and deadly birth. Rich and powerful CEO Celestino ( Craig Spidle ) refuses to take his cocaine-addled Mexican girlfriend to a U.S. hospital, so he gets assistance from a Mexican midwife named Dolores ( Charin Alvarez ) , who is also the mistress of Celestino's crooked border patrolman brother, Frank ( H.B. Ward ) .
The baby survives, but when the mother doesn't, Celestino has Dolores and her children ( through Frank ) deported. He then proceeds to have his new son, Lazaro ( Tony Sancho ) , raised like a chained animal on an island in the middle of the Rio Grande River.
It's bizarre plotting like this that makes the serious and important points of Dreamlandia hard to swallow. I'm sure Solis was hoping the dark humor and wacky situations would make the contentious issues easier to take, but in a way it just cheapens them by playing things mainly for laughs.
That's a pity because Teatro Vista has gone all out on Dreamlandia with great production values ( particularly the dreamy video projections by Luis DeLaTorre and Reyna Diana ) and incisive acting.
As Blanca, Dolores' grown daughter out for vengeance, Jessica Camacho is very much the heart of the production, honestly showing the anger and resentment of a child denied happiness due to circumstances of her birth and her mother's mistreatment.
On the humorous side, Marcus Catillo is great at Blanca's mentally challenged brother Pepin, who has choice comic bits ( especially with night goggles ) with the border patrolmen of Troy Martin and Mitch Salm. Sandra Delgado is also pitch perfect as Vivian, Celestino's newly acquired wife who coldly and calculatingly sells her Mexican brothers and sisters short as she greedily takes in the wealth and status of her new position.
So in the end, Dreamlandia is an extremely frustrating experience. There is so much right about Teatro Vista's imaginative and well-acted production, but so many annoying things about Solis' ambitious but ultimately unsatisfying writing.