Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes concludes her deservedly acclaimed “Elliot Trilogy” with The Happiest Song Plays Last, its powerful Latino Theater Company California Premiere made momentous by the fact that Parts 1 at 2 are both currently playing in L.A.*

Like its 2012 predecessor Water For The Spoonful, Happiest Song (which debuted two years later) juxtaposes two parallel stories.

Over in Jordan, ex-Marine Elliot Ortiz’s (Peter Pasco) gig as authenticity advisor for a Iraq War docudrama has recently expanded into a leading role for the aspiring actor, one that has him playing scenes opposite a hijab-and-abaya-clad Shar (Vaneh Assadourian), whose privileged Beverly Hills upbringing and Juilliard degree would seem to make her the least likely candidate to play an Iraqi villager were it not that the ¼-Egyptian/¼-Iranian (“with Cherokee, Korean, and WASP thrown in for flavor”) studied Arabic in college as a “career investment.”

(Note: Playwright Hudes’s real-life cousin Elliot Ruiz starred in Nick Broomfield’s award winning 2007 film festival favorite Battle For Haditha.)

Meanwhile back in the states, Elliot’s 30something music professor cousin Yaz (Elisa Bocanegra) has not only assumed ownership of her late aunt’s North Philly’s house but also her mission to serve as unofficial matriarch to the neighborhood’s homeless population.

Adding local flavor, comic relief, and more than a bit of poignancy on the Jordan film set is Arabic culture advisor Ali (Kamal Marayati), an undocumented refugee passing as Jordanian unless traces of an Iraqi accent should happen to give him, his wife, and child away.

As for Yaz, her newly acquired vocation has her taking over as “Mom” to the considerably older, mentally challenged Lefty (John Seda-Pitre) while being romanced by 60ish (and still legally wed) Agustin (Al Rodrigo) even as a ticking biological clock ignites in her a need to be something more than surrogate mother.

If three generations of Ortiz men-in-uniform united plot threads in Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue and addiction served as a leitmotiv throughout Water By The Spoonful, parenthood is at the heart of The Happiest Song Plays Last, whether the bond that continues to link the woman who raised Elliot to her adoptive son, or Ali’s devotion to his own child, or Yaz’s mothering to the homeless of North Philadelphia, or the Iraqi war victim whose death haunts both Elliot and the man’s eight-year-old son, or even Elliot himself.

While less out-and-out brilliant than its Pulitzer Prize-winning predecessor, The Happiest Song Plays Last is nonetheless contemporary theater at its most powerful (and more accessible than the poetry-as-play Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue), its intentionally diverse cast of characters affording a sensational Hispanic-Iranian-Iraqi-American ensemble the chance to burn up the stage under Edward Torres’s accomplished direction.

Pasco’s dynamic, charismatic star turn reveals both Elliot’s growth as a man and the actor’s as a confident and commanding stage artist, imbuing the character with humor and heart, and never more so than when Elliot finally buries the past both figuratively and literally and tears (both his and ours) flow.

Bocanegra’s Yaz is feisty, passionate, compassionate and caring, whether in earth-mother mode opposite Seda-Pitre’s sweet, simple-hearted Lefty or sizzling with May-September chemistry opposite Rodrigo’s aged-like-fine-wine Agustin.

Assadourian shines as a character discovering a sense of identity in the racial potpourri of her roots, and Marayati’s Ali reveals the depth of a husband and father’s devotion beneath an unwilling refugee’s lighthearted façade.

Rising scenic design star Se Hyun Oh allows Yaz’s decidedly “lived in” kitchen (kudos too to property master Eric Babb) to serve as backdrop to the Iraqi desert sands below, a design enhanced by John A. Garafalo’s nuanced-to-dramatic lighting, Yee Eun Nam’s artfully rendered scene-setting video-and-still projections, Dianne Graebner’s mix of costumes from desert storm to urban unchic, and Ivan Robles’s drama-boosting sound design.

Last but not least, musician-vocalist Nelson González’s artistry on the nine-string guitar adds local Puerto Rican color throughout.

Jess Wolisnky is assistant director. Yuki Izumihara is associate projection designer, Zach Titterington is associate lighting designer.

Emily Lehrer is production stage manager and Cristina “Crispy” Carrillo-Dono is assistant stage manager.  Chas Croslin is production manager.

A fitting (and as its title suggests) hopeful conclusion to Elliot Ortiz’s journey as a soldier, a son, a Puerto Rican, an American, and a man, The Happiest Song Plays Last does Elliot Ruiz and his cousin Quiara proud.

*Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue runs through February 25 at the Kirk Douglas Theatre and Water By The Spoonful through March 11 at the Mark Taper Forum

Latino Theater Company, Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles. .
www.thelatc.org

–Steven Stanley
February 22, 2018
Photos: Gio Solis of Bracero.la

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Los Angeles Theatre Center, Quiara Alegría Hudes, The Latino Theater Company