Three Bone’s 'Mojada' — not a dry eye in the house
'Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles' runs through Aug. 24 at The Arts Factory at West End Studios
This review by longtime Charlotte arts critic Lawrence Toppman was published by The Charlotte Ledger on August 10, 2024. You can find out more about The Charlotte Ledger’s commitment to smart local news and information and sign up for our newsletter for free here. And check out this link for Toppman’s archive of reviews in the Ledger.
Review: 'Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles’ brings Greek tragedy to Latino Los Angeles
The set by Jennifer Wynn O’Kelly features lush overgrowth, suggesting a house in a jungle — a place about to be overcome by dark forces of nature. (Photo courtesy of Three Bone Theatre)
by Lawrence Toppman
If you buy a ticket to “Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles,” your confirmation e-mail from Three Bone Theatre will contain a paragraph about emotional triggers that may distress theatergoers. Do not read it.
In the first place, it gives away a crucial plot point I won’t reveal here. In the second, if you don’t have the stomach for the kinds of psychological terrors audiences first confronted 2,500 years ago, you’re at the wrong play.
Luis Alfaro has updated Euripides’ drama as the third part of a trilogy inspired by Greek tragedies, following “Electricidad” (from Sophocles’ “Electra”) and “Oedipus El Rey” (from Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”). Three Bone is using its first National Endowment for the Arts grant to help produce all three: It will become the first American company to do so when it puts on “Electricidad” in the 2024-25 season and “Oedipus El Rey” the season after that.
Alfaro has set “Mojada” amid the Latino community in Los Angeles, though an off-Broadway production in 2019 moved it to the borough of Queens. The title means “wet” in Spanish, but Latinos also use it to describe undocumented immigrants in the United States.
That applies to Medea, Hason, their son Acan and wise old Tita, who slip across the border from Mexico in one of many harrowing scenes. Tita (Banu Valladares), a kind of Greek chorus for the show and factotum for the family, happily accepts peaceful anonymity in the historically Chicano neighborhood of Boyle Heights. Medea (Sonia Rosales McLeod), a gifted seamstress, hides in the confines of her yard and flinches at the sound of helicopters passing overhead. Acan (Leo Torres) would be satisfied with a new pair of sneakers and his first cell phone.
But Hason (Christian Serna) has bigger plans. He flirts with Armida (Mariana Corrales), his boss and the financial queen of the neighborhood, who feels she’s entitled to his attention beyond business hours. That plunges all five characters into a tragedy that unfolds with inexorable horror.
Alfaro and directors CarlosAlexis Cruz and Michelle Medina Villalon keep the most troubling events offstage, as Greek dramatists did. Even then, the lush overgrowth around Jennifer Wynn O’Kelly’s set suggests a house in a jungle, a place about to be overcome by dark forces of nature.
Alfaro has been faithful to the Greek story of Medea and Jason, with minor amendments (one son instead of two, no role for the queen’s father). The Greek couple were also immigrants, seeking a better life in a foreign land and (in Jason’s case) trading honor for financial security and power. The same action, a killing, prevents both the couple in “Medea” and the couple in “Mojada” from going back to their roots. And the element of magic realism in Euripides, an intervention by the god Helios, has a parallel in “Mojada.”
Of course, the Mexican family may be sent back any time someone calls la migra to have them deported. That adds a layer of desperation Euripides did not supply. His Medea avenged a debt of honor; Alfaro’s Medea acts more out of rage and agony, though both playwrights justify her behavior. McLeod rises to Medea’s two gripping monologues with tremendous power, operating at a full flood of emotion.
Three Bone has always welcomed newcomers, and four of the six cast members make company debuts in the show. (Isabel Gonzalez plays the other character, a gossipy baker who realizes self-interest inevitably trumps friendship.) They make the 95 intermission-free minutes zip by, as Alfaro speeds the story toward a grim conclusion with a hopeful element.
The last sound after the wailing dies down is the distant chug-chug of a helicopter, symbol of authorities perennially hunting down people without citizenship papers. Tragedy, Alfaro reminds us, needn’t end in spilled blood; sometimes it ends in the smashed dream of a better life.
If You’re Going: Three Bone Theatre’s “Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles” runs through Aug. 24 at The Arts Factory at West End Studios, 1545 W. Trade St. Performances start at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.
Lawrence Toppman covered the arts for 40 years at The Charlotte Observer before retiring in 2020. Now, he’s back in the critic’s chair for the Charlotte Ledger — look for his reviews about two times each month in the Charlotte Ledger.
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