From left: Luz Lopez, Daniel Rios Jr., Brogan Nelson, Rebekah Rae Robles, and Paola Ferrer. Photo by Nile Scott Studios.
Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company
Written by Alexis Scheer
Directed by Mariela Lopez-Ponce
Intimacy coordination by Paulina Martz
Dance consultant: Audrey Johnson
September 18 – October 12, 2024
Boston Center of the Arts
The Calderwood Pavilion: Roberts Studio Theatre
527 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116
Critique by Kitty Drexel
BOSTON — Laughs In Spanish is a snapshot into the lives of art gallery manager Mari (Rebekah Rae Robles) and her intern/best friend Caro (Luz Lopez) on the day of a major exhibit for a male celebrity artist. The paintings have gone missing! So the gallery’s security guard (and Caro’s boyfriend) Juan (Daniel Rios Jr.) investigates.
They are troubleshooting when Mari learns that her mother is in town. Estella (Paola Ferrer), a true Hollywood star, arrives and disrupts everyone’s day with her presence. Her trusty assistant Jenny (Brogan Nelson) is at her side. Estella promises to help. Mari is dubious. Caro and Juan are keeping secrets. Jenny is trying to salvage Estella’s day.
Laughs In Spanish is part telenovela, part family comedy. It’s sweet and hilarious while covertly examining intense mother-daughter relationships. There is no relationship like the one between a mother trying to save her daughter from intergenerational trauma and a daughter who feels misunderstood no matter what she does. With laughs and sincerity, playwright Alexis Scheer grasps the complicated love/frustration dichotomy inherent to a mother-daughter dynamic.
Through specificity, Scheer creates universality. These characters are Latina/o. I am not, and I still saw my relationship with my mother enacted onstage. I saw my mother’s relationship with her mother onstage. We’ve never been to Miami, but we know how it feels to love someone despite intense psychological incompatibility and familial cognitive dissonance while consuming plentitudes of high-octane coffee.
Scheer keeps the stakes of the play low for the audience while simultaneously establishing them as high for her characters. The audience enjoys the chisme onstage and has sympathy for the woes of its likable characters, but we never worry that the characters will be seriously hurt by what happens next. The show has substance but not so much mass that it’s weighed down.
The cast is great. They balance the ups, downs, and nuances like champs at Lopez-Ponce’s direction.
Paola Ferrer is fresh off of her epic performances in Apollinaire Theatre’s The Suppliant Women (in which, she was fantastic). She gives a compelling performance as Estella. Ferrer commands the stage like Rita Moreno but makes the role her own. Her mother-daughter relationship with Rebekah Rae Robles feels natural. They lovingly antagonize each other but its never too much.
The sound design by Anna Drummond is sneaky. What you think is someone’s cell phone going off or a music rehearsal in a room upstairs is actually Drummond’s design creeping up on the audience from the back of the room. Drummond places sound throughout the Roberts Studio Theatre. It replicates the chaos of LA’s soundscape. It’s organic like the inspiration to merengue out of an argument and coordinated like a paparazzi capturing poses on a red carpet.
The costume by Rebecca Glick is sexy and breezy. They capture the ethos of Miami culture while bolstering the character work of the cast. The light blue suit Rebekah Rae wears in the first half of the play shows us her character Mariana is all business for Art Basel and dresses for the weather. The blue satin dress (because blue is her color) she changes into for the party is elegant but just modest enough to look polished and professional. Glick does the same for the other characters. Everything Paola Ferrer as Estella – whether high chic or understated – is glamorous.
Underneath its shiny veneer, Laughs In Spanish weighs late-stage capitalism against the necessity of art, responsibility against hedonism, and thought against feeling. Its characters are managing modern relationships while balancing age-old human complications like family and community. It acknowledges the impossibility of some relationships but allows its characters happy endings because theatre should be hopeful, too. There is something for everyone – especially if you enjoy heartfelt monologues and discussions about theatre from inside the theatre.
Laughs In Spanish is in English with minimal Spanish sprinkled in. Its language is tailored to an English-speaking audience. You’ll be fine.
