Playwrights’ Arena closes its all-around terrific 2019 season with Las Mujeres Del Mar (The Women Of The Sea), Janine Salinas Schoenberg’s 3-generation, 2-country, 72-minute Mexican-American family saga told from a female point of view.

Dementia-fueled dreams of her long-ago juventud transport Virginia Del Mar (a touching Dyana Ortelli) back to the moment she and Ignacio (charismatic Israel López Reyes) first made love on the playas of Puerto Azul, un romance that turned sour when Virginia’s love for dancing en publico awakened violencia in the man who’d long ago proposed matrimonio with a seashell taking the place of an engagement anillo, outburst that left her no choice but to escapar across the rio to los Estados Unidos, and eventually to Los Angeles, the couple’s ten-year-old hija Marina (a fiery Adriana Sevahn Nichols) in tow.

Now, years later, Marina is herself una madre, and unfortunately for her daughter Lupe (the extraordinary Gabriela Ortega), finds herself strung out on drogas, an addiction that will send her behind bars as a now adolecente Lupe seeks family amongst the pandillas of East L.A. only to fall for rival gang member Miguel (Eddie Ruiz, a charmer), un amor prohibido to do Romeo and Juliet proud.

As the above synopsis might suggest, there’s mucho español in Schoenberg’s World Premiere drama as befits a family of bilingual Mexican-Americans, some of it supertitled in English, a lot of it left to the imagination of audience members with little or no command Spanish as a second language.

Still, even for those who find themselves missing out on significant chunks of dialog, Las Mujeres Del Mar proves a potent look at the immigrant experience, a not always rosy picture to be sure, but one not lacking in hope.

At just under an hour-and-a-quarter, Las Mujeres Del Mar does zip by a bit too quickly over thirty-plus years to do full justice to Virginia, Marina, and Lupe.

Still, brevity has its advantages, not the least of which is that there’s never a dull moment under Diane Rodriguez’s strikingly theatrical direction.

Ortega in particular digs deep into a young woman’s pain and longing, but she’s just one-seventh of a splendid Latinx cast completed by a luminous Valentina Guerra as a young inmate who offers Marina a second chance at motherhood and a sympathetic Camila Rosa as Lupe’s friend Sabina.

Tanya Orella’s strikingly original set situates the action on sand whether we’re seaside in Puerto Azul or inside Virginia’s apartment or behind bars with Marina and Rosario or on urban streets whose gangland graffiti are just one of projection designer Yee Eun Nam’s stunning creations.

Sound designer Matt Richter’s environment-establishing effects and Adam Schoenberg’s mood-setting original music merit their own kudos as well as do Mylette Nora’s just-right costumes and Mextly Couzin’s expressive lighting.

Las Mujeres Del Mar is produced by Henry “Heno” Fernandez. Casting is by Raul Clayton Staggs. Edgar Landa is fight choreographer. Christina Bryan is production stage manager. Sonia Sofia Rivera is director’s assistant.

Though it helps to be bilingual, or at the very least conversant in Spanish, to fully understand and appreciate Las Mujeres Del Mar, the story Schoenberg has to tell goes a long way towards transcending language barriers in her powerful, redemptive Women Of The Sea.

Playwrights’ Arena @ Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village.
www.playwrightsarena.org

–Steven Stanley
September 23, 2019
Photos: Kelly Stuart

Tags: Janine Salinas Schoenberg, Los Angeles Theater Review, Playwrights' Arena