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Experiencing ‘Encuentro’

Maximiliano Rivas stood up from his seat in the theater to discuss how language is a complex barrier. The actor is more comfortable with Spanish but can speak some English and understand most of it. I am on the other end of the spectrum. I am more comfortable with English but can speak some Spanish and understand most of it. Neither situation is better than the other. We are equally Latine. 

Latino Theater Company’s “Encuentro” festival at the Lost Angeles Theater Center brings Latine theater nationwide to Los Angeles for three weeks filled with 19 productions. Artistic Director José Luis Valenzuela’s mission is to put the diaspora of Latinidad in conversation, allowing the Latine artistry to exist without barriers or limitations. More importantly, he wants to showcase the complexity of our community. This year’s 10th-anniversary event arrived amid the election of Donald Trump. We entered the space somber and concerned. But in community, we could find comfort in each other and our stories. 

During the third week’s National Latinx Theater Initiative (NLTI) session where artists gathered to talk about the state of Latine theater, candid conversations took way. Rivas’ comments came while discussing the various languages used at the festival. Some primarily spoke Spanish and some primarily spoke English. To solve the issue, LTC offered subtitles and in-ear translation services. While this did have some kinks, there were significant efforts to make the breadth of Latinidad available for all. 

“It’s impossible to fit us into a single box,” one artist said. 

Growing up as a third-generation Chicano in Texas, my experience of Latinidad is complex. Like many Latin American kids in my situation, my parents didn’t teach me Spanish to keep me out of harm's way. The Spanish language faces cultural aggression. We face violence, discrimination and exploitation. We aren’t taught Spanish out of survival. Simultaneously, some parts of our community push us out of the conversation because we aren’t “Latino enough.” The discussion at “Encuentro” revealed that we are so divided that these language barriers should no longer be used against each other. This isn’t the time. 

“Encuentro” helps mend these wounds. It’s felt throughout the festival. No matter our nationality, language, gender, sexuality, etc., we are all accepted in the space. This environment is fostered out of Valnezuela’s interest in bringing authentic, complex Latine representation to the stage. 

“In American theater, we don’t exist,” he said. 

During the session, he recounted feeling beat up emotionally by theater because the industry does not respect our community. We are depicted as criminals. We are overlooked for roles without a specific ethnicity. 

“We try to get to the regional theaters and they don’t like us,” he said. “It’s damaging our soul.” 

The same goes for news coverage. Latino Theater Company, which has a predominant presence in the LA theater scene, is rarely reviewed by the LA Times. More recent times include in 2023 and 2019. With the introduction of De Los at the paper, there has been more coverage but seldom a review. The message is clear: Latine stories aren’t worth reflecting upon. 

“Encuentro” has a strong presence in the Latine theater ecosystem. In each theater, there is support and praise from other Latine artists in the audience. There are verbal gasps and reactions. When a show references a particular song, as done in “Interview with a Mexican” and “Blanco Temblor,” the audience joins in, whether prompted or not. This is theater. Much of theater’s history and roots are riddled with vocal crowds. The phenomenon of quiet theaters is a 20th-century trend and form of white supremacy that polices audiences to this day. The conversation of bringing back vocal crowds has been an ongoing effort by artists of color in the 21st century.

During “Interview with a Mexican,” audience members responded with a shocked “What?” and an agreeing “mhmm.” Even during the NLTI session, fellow artists snapped, huffed and made vocal noises in support. 

This isn’t just authentic Latine storytelling. This is authentic theater.

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Micro Reviews

Throughout my four-day theater marathon at “Encuentro,” I witnessed some incredible work. To ensure each piece gets its love (and criticism), here is a speed run of micro-reviews:

Your Healing is Killing Me (Cara Mía Theatre - Dallas, TX)

Written by Virginia Grise. Directed by Kendra Ware. National touring production developed by Cara Mia Theatre in association with a todo dar.

Faylita Hicks explores the ways that structural racism attacks our health one exercise at a time. The story pulls from personal lessons learned from treatments, community health workers, abortion doctors, Marxist artists and bougie dermatologists. The story itself tries to tackle a lot without a consistent throughline. As a result, much of the impact it tries to achieve misses the mark. There are special moments throughout the solo work, including comical impressions and succinct sections that each center on a single story. One of the most promising and profound storylines is her struggle with eczema. From seedy underground ointments to luxurious doctor’s offices, the leading character is constantly given harmful steroids that make her condition worse. She finds the solution in bone broth, a decolonized form of medicine. 

The show concludes with one big celebratory dance. Hicks invites people to the stage to do a line dance to “Joy” by Voices of Fire and Pharrell Williams. After a performance that rarely strays from its somber and dramatic tone, this conclusion taps into the show's missing ingredient: joy as resistance. 

Yamel Cucuy (Glass Half Full Theatre - Austin, TX)

Written by Gricelda Silva, Indigo Rael, and Caroline Reck with additional writing by Jesus I. Valles and Connor Hopkins. Directed by Caroline Reck.

Growing up, my grandmother would scare me into doing what she told me: the Cucuy would come after me — specifically La Chupacabra. This is a Chicano canon event. “Yamel Cucuy” cracks open this childhood experience to comment on immigration issues and ICE’s predatory attacks on Latine communities at the border. 

The play follows Yamel (Diana Patricia Guizado) and her family as they go about their daily life staying safe from deportation. There are even shared rules. When raids reach their neighborhood, Yamel is haunted by monsters of Mexican folklore, including El Viejo de la bolsa (an old man who captures kids in his sack), La Lechuza (an ominous owl), La Llorona (a vengeful weeping woman who drowned her kids) and La Chupacabra (a blood-sucking animal). ICE enters her home and she hides in the fridge. When things go awry, the monsters of her childhood guide her through the nine levels of eternal rest from the legend of Mictlán. As her death sets in, she is determined to figure out how to stop her eternal rest and the death of future children. 

The narrative is well-written, beginning with a solid foreshadowing scene that makes the ending much sweeter. The monsters are brought to life with the help of puppetry crafted by the unified efforts of the creative team. The show is hilarious, specifically with La Chupacabra (Gustavo Martinez) who urges everyone to refer to him as Chupacabrón. The play is packed with Chicano cultural references, from La Llorona’s (Minerva Villa) love for Selena Quintanilla to Chupacabrón’s affinity for Takis. The set is versatile, allowing for characters to sink into furniture and create magical moments that are nearly cinematic. The show ends with a well-executed message that re-interprets Mexican folklore as a protective device for Latine children to stay out of harm’s way, offering a supernatural solution to protect the community from deportation and death. 

Whittier Boulevard (Latino Theater Company - Los Angeles, CA)

Written by the Latino Theater Company. Directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela

Thanks to Los Angeles traffic, I missed this performance. However, I did report on the collaborative work for the LA Times last year and already knew the work pretty intimately. When I entered the theater, I learned that a school arrived to see the show as part of a field trip. The theater was so packed that there weren’t even spots for late seating. I felt okay missing it, especially knowing my seat went to a local student.

Quarter Rican (Gabriel Diego Hernandez - Jersey City, NJ)

by Gabriel Diego Hernández and Rachel Elmer

A young father (Gabriel Diego Hernández) with an 11-month-old baby converses about fatherhood and culture with another father at the playground. His main concern is that his son may lose his Latine culture as a quarter Puerto Rican kid. Throughout the 90-minute show, he grapples with his own identity and his child’s future with the help of his MC Plátano alter-ego alongside musician and DJ Arabelle Luke (aka AirLoom Beats). 

The show begins with immersive beatboxing by AirLoom Beats. She easily scores the entire show, creating a beat from her imitation of a crying baby. It feels like there could be nothing more mesmerizing than her performance, but then Gabriel Diego Hernández enters. They are an inseparable duo who embody a fatherly conversation with upbeat music and quippy lyrics. They are perfect companions in this show. AirLoom Beats adds to the humor with unspoken reactions (including eye rolls and giggles) that encourage the audience to be part of the conversation. 

Throughout the performance, Hernández collects helpful tools for his son’s Boricua starter kit, from Brown neighbors and classmates to amor. Hernández documents the unspoken hardships of being in an interracial relationship. The story is commendably candid about the awkward conversations with the in-laws and the microaggressions he witnesses as a parent to a white-passing son. He talks of gentrification and the desire to be around his culture, even when he (as a half-Puerto Rican in New Jersey) sought to be closer to his culture. The show doesn’t let the trauma overpower the narrative. He slips in humor to make something complex approachable and dissectible. 

Blanco Temblor (Teatro Público - San Juan, PR) 

Written and directed by Carola García López

“Blanco Temblor” begins with dance. Marina del Mar (Gabriela Saker) folds her body over and whips back up to shake her head. Cut-out eyes, noses and mouths hang over the ensemble as they pull Saker by the hair to center stage. She’s emotionally unraveling. 

“Blanco Temblor” follows Del Mar, a bipolar Puerto Rican astrophysicist who survived a suicide attempt and has a congenital illness where she can’t tremble, as she finds herself caught in the in-between — revisiting people in her life (dead and alive) as she recounts the memories that will keep her on earth. The show is absolutely haunting. With each interaction, we learn more about her. We learn about her relationship with her best friend and her love for her grandmother. 

“Blanco Temblor” is a narrative seldom seen on stage, especially with Latine characters. Her struggles are real and close to home for me, making her interactions feel like a deep cut. In her final moments, she is visited by her mother (Carola Garcia López) with dementia. Her interaction in the healthcare facility is heartbreaking, but when her mother shows up youthful and pain-free in the afterlife, the tragedy feels even worse. They struggle to hug because of their distant circumstances, reaching out their arms and missing each other by mere inches. They find a compromise: a butterfly kiss. It’s a sad, yet promising goodbye that’s hard to swallow. This show still lingers with me today. 

Antigona 3.0 (Borderlands Theater - Pheonix, AZ) 

Written by Marc David Pinate, Milta Ortiz, Jonathan Heras, Jesus I. Valles, Adam Cooper-Terán. Co-directed by Marc Pinate and Roweena Mackay 

This is a work in progress. After Borderlands Theater gets the biggest grant they’ve ever received ($100,000), they go straight to the drawing board. To use the grant, they must create a reinterpreted version of Sophocles’ “Antigone” at the border. This performance shows just what they’ve been brewing up. 

A lot of the work is small samples of what could be part of the final piece, including monologues, music by Gertie López, skits exposing machismo and an interactive game with the audience that tests your skills crossing the border. The show is technologically savvy. There is a screen downstage that disappears with dark lighting and reappears to expose a backstage. The quartet of performers — Milta Ortiz, Marc David Pinate, Jonathan Heras and Adam Cooper-Terán — have comical banter that works incredibly well at pulling your attention. And Heras’ performance is particularly memorable. He commits to the comedic bits, pushing his physical comedy to the limits, and sinks into the emotions telling his darkest stories. 

It’s incredibly avante-garde. I can’t say whether the show is a hit or a miss because they are transparent that this is a work in progress. It’s clear that some sections are still in the works based on how their physical demeanor shifts, unable to stick a landing and commit to a choice. But when something feels solid and in place for the final product, so does the overall performance. 

Odd Man Out (PITCHBLACK Immersive Experiences - New York, NY)

Written by Martín Bondone. Directed by Martín Bondone, Carlos Armesto, Facundo Bogarín

Sitting there in the darkness, the world evolves around you. The beeps and whirs of a boarding plane fill the air. PITCHBLACK’s immersive “Odd Man Out” helps you capture the world of the play through its leading blind character Alberto (Pablo Drutman), keeping the audience in complete darkness. He’s on a plane from New York to Buenos Aires after decades of exiling himself from his home, leaving Argentina in the 60s to escape the country’s troubled politics and pursue a career in music with a scholarship in New York City. 

The show is similar to an audio play but takes it a step further by capturing the world around you with sound designed by Nicolas Alvarez. As Alberto tells his two new friends on the plane about his old flame, Clara (Agustina Cedraschi), the soundscape flows in and out of flashbacks. The story is well-rounded and executed. Scents are also used to capture the world while you are immersed in the darkness. Alberto mentions coffee and the smell of freshly brewed cup wafts in the air. He recalls tangerine trees outside the home, and the sweet citrus scent takes over. The senses of touch and taste are also part of the world when the flight attendant passes out candy and Alberto tells Clara to feel the braille word for “Love,” which is indented on a piece of paper in our hands. The entire narrative is bittersweet and helps capture the Argentine Revolution through the story of a beautiful love story gone sour. As I entered the light again, I was amazed by the barriers the artistic ensemble pushed to create something so theatrically innovative. 

Interview with a Mexican (Su Teatro - Denver, CO) 

Based on conversations with Gustavo Arellano. Adapted for the stage and directed by Anthony J Garcia. Jaguar Jeopardy by Lorenzo Gonzalez

Gustavo Arellano is a staple voice in Los Angeles media. His column for the OC Weekly, “¡Ask a Mexican!,” inspired this show — retitled “Interview with a Mexican” for legal reasons. The entire show brings Arellano’s sharp humor and analysis into the characters on stage. The show is separated into sections of straightforward Q&As, many answered by the leading Mexican “Goldhat” (Lorenzo Gonzalez), and restaged scenes on the bare stage. 

“Interview with a Mexican” uses humor to unearth the common questions non-Chicanos ask without hesitation. The result can be a hilarious quip or a deeply introspective look at racism and social issues impacting the community. The overall performance and show are incredibly smart and make some complex information digestible. Surprisingly, a show framed around answering questions commonly asked by those outside the community still resonated with those within. 

As the show explores darker territory, including common slurs and the microgressions commonly perpetrated by white people, the performers ensure that it is done with taste and respect. “To ask is to get answers,” Gonzalez says. This is the beautiful core of the show.

Keep Reading

Check out my latest story here: 

• Crawl Space’s ‘Spare Change Vol. 2’ embraces song, silence and a scream (LA Dance Chronicle)

And to read more about what it’s like to experience “Encuentro,” check out Cerys Davies' coverage of an intermission for De Los.

Meme of the Week

Just rewatched “Challengers”