A high school boy navigating unrequited feelings for a female best friend while making college plans either to stay close to home or to travel thousands of miles away is a tale, if not as old as time, at least as ancient as the John Hughes 1980s, but it feels fresh and new when the high schooler in question has only ever known life on a New Mexico Indian reservation in Dillon Chitto’s World Premiere comedy Bingo Hall.

 Meet eighteen-year-old Edward Anaya (Kholan Studi, who like his fellow Native Voices castmates has indigenous roots), narrating his coming-of-age journey while calling off bingo numbers for community elders like Mrs. Zuni (LaVonne Rae Andrews), gone ditzy in old age (she tells Eddie to say “Hi” to Pancho Villa if he sees him) but still pretty sharp for a woman of her advanced years.

That Mrs. Z happens to be the grandmother of Eddie’s childhood bestie Dakota (Michaela Escarcega) might be coincidental in another setting, but in the small Pueblo village they call home, no man (or woman or child) is an island.

 That’s why Eddie’s future, and Dakota’s, and that of Raleigh aka Ray (Kenny Ramos), the town’s all-star point guard and Edward’s other best friend, are everybody’s business, and that includes Eddie’s parents (Duane Minard and Rainy Fields as Joe and Donna Amaya) and a multitude of “Aunties,” among them Auntie Beverly (Jennifer Bobiwash) and Auntie Teresa (Allison Hudson Hicks).

Not only must Eddie weigh acceptance letters from a nearby state institution and another in far-off Chicago under very public scrutiny, he must also deal with the distance either choice will put between him and Dakota, heading off to Oregon to study medicine in the fall.

 At least staying near home would mean staying close to State-bound Ray, but how long will that continue to feel good once Eddie learns that his two best friends have recently started dating?

Meanwhile, Edward’s pueblo governor dad has an election coming up, one that may for the first time feature two candidates and not just one, and since his likely opponent wants the tribal elders to finance a radio station and not the day care center Joe supports, the days between now and the election look to be bumpy.

As Eddie cracks wise about bingo (“O-69. I would make a joke, but my mother has just informed me I’m the only person who thinks I’m funny.”) and his charismatic father (“He’s amazing. If he’d been at Plymouth Rock, he would have rallied the Pilgrims to turn around.”), the cast take turns recounting a tribal folktale that not only explains in mythic fashion how their way of life was born but serves as a metaphor for our three teens’ coming of age journey.

Dialog may be more ‘80s sitcom than inspired, but performances are uniformly lively under Jon Lawrence Rivera’s direction, with special snaps to the instantly likable Studi in Matthew Broderick-circa-Ferris Bueller mode, Ramos’s spunky, irresistible Ray, and Escarcega’s girl-nest-door-riffic Dakota. As for Andrews, her Mrs. Zuni is such a hoot, it’s a shame she’s only in Act One.

 Bingo Hall looks terrific on Christopher Scott Murillo’s scene-switching set topped by a gigantic bingo card and featuring Murillo’s multitude of contemporary American and traditional Native American props.

Carla Linton’s lighting, Tom Ontiveros’s projections, John Nobori’s sound design work their own wonders, particularly in dreamlike folktale sequences, and E.B. Brooks’s colorful costumes combine today’s looks with Native American traditional.

 Randy Reinholz and Jean Bruce Scott are executive producers. Rodrigo Correia is assistant director, Jessica Ordon is dramaturg, and Edgar Landa is fight choreographer. Victoria Tam is assistant projection designer and Suzanne Wakefield Scott is assistant costume designer. Meredith O’Gwynn is production stage manager.

Bingo Hall may offer nothing new in terms of plot, but the laughter it provides along with light it sheds on life “on the rez” and the challenges faced by those contemplating leaving it all behind make the latest from America’s leading Native American theater company worth checking out.

Wells Fargo Theater, The Autry National Center, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles.
www.TheAutry.org/NativeVoices

–Steven Stanley
March 15, 2018
Photos: Craig Schwartz

Tags: Dillon Chitto, Los Angeles Theater Review, Native Voices At The Autry