The “American (TV) Vision” program at the New York Theater Workshop on Thursday includes references to nearly 50 books, films, works of art and music that inspired playwright Victor. . I. Casares. The broad list of titles includes works by Luis Buñuel, Haruki Murakami, Magnetic Fields, and Stephen Mitchell’s translation of his 2000 Bhagavad Gita.
It’s this memory play set inside the reflective screens of Walmart’s television division, a treasure trove of themes, tropes, and touchstones of ’90s American culture that are sometimes unwieldy, but often assimilated. A good way to explain.
For young Erica and her family—illegal Mexican immigrants living in a “poor but racially diverse” trailer park—Walmart is a haven of discounted linoleum flooring, a dream come true. Erica (Bianca “b” Norwood), who likes boys’ clothes and toys, has her eye on race cars, and her best friend Jeremy (Ryan J. Haddad) has her eye on pink boxes of Barbie dolls. Erica’s father, Octavio (Raul Castillo), stands engrossed in the TV. It’s like sitting in his home for hours in a catatonic state of desperation. Her mother, Maria Ximena (Elia Monte-Brown), disappeared in an unknown location in her shop for reasons that Erica knows. We know this is related to Maria later abandoning her family for truck drivers. And her brother Alejandro is secretly buying KY jelly and condoms.
But Alejandro is already dead, so he can’t even play himself in this jumbled family story.
The story already has a telenovela hairpin turn, full of secret affairs, betrayals, family resentments, deaths and gasp-worthy slaps, but the characters, especially Erica, are empowered to lead the story, and the events themselves. chronologically changed. Reframe and reclassify rewarding memories. This makes “American (TV) Vision” an acrobatic piece of storytelling. From the living room couch to Erica and Jeremy’s fictional detective series to Walmart’s layaway department, the production evokes a sense of channel surfing as modes and tones switch so quickly.
Ruben Polend’s direction is lively and clear, but exaggerates the vulnerability of the script: stressed language, repetitiveness, too many metaphors (Octavio is TV, Alejandro is chain link fence) and length. Although only 100 minutes on the air without a break, the show seems to go on and on like Channel His Guide to the best cable TV packages.
A non-binary actor who uses the pronouns they/them, Norwood spends most of the play as Erica’s bright and imaginative childhood self, but there are traces of adult Erica in their acting. It’s a kind of enthusiasm and confidence, a kind of grown-up wisdom of someone coming to terms with her trauma. As Erica’s parents, Monte Brown is at her best when she unleashes her mother’s roar of grief, while Castillo bases his performance on an overwhelming and pervasive melancholy.
While being cast as a supporting role in Erica’s life and fantasies, Haddad’s Jeremy portrays the capitalist video game-style villainous daughter of “Ain Land Erotic Fantasy” as a masterful complex of Alejandro and Jessie, their/their Crews, who also use pronouns, are both strangely present and absent, and as two characters, one alive and one dead, they deliver a performance that feels appropriately ephemeral. They run in and out of the scene, switching characters from line to line. It’s like ghosts.
Co-produced by Theater Mitu, known for their experimental mixed media theater, the show has high-definition color and depth. Bretta Gerecke’s sets Her designs elicit the immersive feeling of living in a screen world. The stage is a huge box with four towering cubes of her inside, two of her stacked on either side. A meteor strike, a living room, a truck façade, a Walmart toy aisle, etc.). Animation, recorded video, and live camera footage are projected onto the surface of the cube and onto the back and sidewalls of the set to help illustrate a breathtaking story that begins with the scourge of capitalism in the United States (“I I don’t want to,” declares Erica, fighting the intersections of immigration, citizenship, queerness, commerce and gender roles.
The lighting design (by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew) is as eye-catching as you’d expect at an electronics show, from dreamy aquamarine to the hazy twin beams of distant car headlights. Intentionally extravagant special outfits, including a pink ruffled princess dress and a mermaid cut white and black barcode dress with fringes and headpiece (designed by “Project Runway” alum Mondo Guerra) is also the same.
“America’s (television) vision” can be a bit repetitive. Still, the production still offers surprises and fun – so don’t touch that dial.
American (TV) Vision
Until October 16th at the New York Theater Workshop in Manhattan. nytw.orgRunning time: 1 hour 40 minutes.