THEATER REVIEW: HOPE

A scene from Hope.

Surviving the American Dream

By Ed Rampell

The TV series Mad Men and Pan Am have done it, and now the musicalHope flashbacks to the era of the Kennedy presidency. But this time Camelot has a Chicano twist, as the Latino Theater Company production follows the Garcia family while they negotiate the early 1960s in Phoenix. These Mexican-Americans are hopeful that with America’s first Catholic president, the American dream may embrace them, too.

Hope uses a clever if well worn plot device to conjure up major celebs or historical figures as personal advisers. Woody Allen deployed Humphrey Bogart in the play and 1972 movie, Play It Again, Sam, the Yugoslav leader Marshall Tito was invoked in the 1992 comedy, Tito and Me, and Bruce Lee was summoned in the East West Players 2008 dramedy, Be Like Water. In Hope adolescent Betty (Olivia Cristina Delgado), who has a crush on Kennedy, creates an imaginary relationship with JFK (little did she know!), who counsels her on life’s trial and tribulations. President Kennedy is wittily evoked through shadowy images projected above the set as he speaks on the phone  in the Oval Office.

Archival film footage depicting Cold War major events are likewise projected overhead, serving to anchor the Garcias’ lives in their historic times in this period piece. Pop songs, too, serve to summon up the America of half a century ago. However, numbers such as "Mister Sandman" and "Please Mr. Postman" are not sixties songs merely played in the background; instead, the cast actually performs the numbers, accompanied by pianist and musical director Ben Taylor.

With the exception of compilation type musicals such as the 1985 Broadway show, Leader of the Pack and Mama Mia! (which is a similar genre), this is the first time I remember seeing a professional production wherein songs created by other artists for entirely different purposes were co-opted and used onstage in a completely different musical. Be that as it may, the pop classics are well-performed and remain a delight to hear, as they reinforce the sense of time chronicled in Hope.

The Garcia family drama includes the usual machismo mishegas, with the poor misunderstood philandering husband, Carlos (Geoffrey Rivas) and the long suffering wife, Elena (Dyana Ortelli). However, the skilled Sal Lopez, a founding member of the venerable LTC, injects a note of tenderness and vulnerability as the family friend Enrique. As the eldest sibling, Esperanza America Ibarra plays the sulking, brooding, pouty angry young woman Gina; what happens to her is telegraphed from miles away.

As this is the Chicano version of Camelot, the politically savvy playwright Evelina Fernandez and director Jose Luis Valenzuela reveal the chinks in the armor of the knights of the Kennedy administration. Although revisionist historians often overlook or downplay the role the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion played in Cuba’s decision to protect itself from the Yanqui colossus to the North with Soviet nukes, Fernandez’s script is wise enough to remind us of this inconvenient truth.

Hope runs through Nov. 13 at the Los Angeles Theatre Centre, 514 S. Spring St., CA 90013. For more info: (866) 811-4111; www.thelatc.org.