A young gay Latino exits the closet to a ‘90s dance club beat in Abel Alvarado’s ARENA: A House MUSIC-al, a heartfelt but overpopulated coming-of-age story that works best when the spotlight is on Alvarado stand-in Lucio, particularly as brought to engaging, charismatic life by newcomer Preston Gonzalez Valle.

We first meet 21-year-old Lucio at a meeting of “E.X.I.T.,” a “Pray Away The Gay” ministry that meets weekly at the church where Lucio’s father serves as pastor.

Unfortunately (or fortunately as the case may be), Lucio soon finds himself taken under the wing of fellow ex-gay hopeful Jerry (Caleb Green), who it turns out has absolutely no interest in giving up man-on-man sex, choosing instead to attend meetings with the sole purpose of finding others of the same bent.

Since hunky young Lucio fits the bill quite nicely, it doesn’t take long for the curly-haired innocent to find himself dancing the night away at the only Santa Monica Blvd. dance club catering specifically to a Latino clientele (largely unwelcome in Waspy WeHo), and opening himself up to a variety of new sexual experiences.

Scenes taking place at Arena feature the musical’s second biggest asset after Valle, Tania Possick’s Hi-NRG choreography performed by a talented young ensemble, and I found my attention rarely lagging as Lucio came to the realization that there was indeed a welcoming world ready to accept him without the conditions set by his judgmental preacher dad.

Act One is filled with one upbeat song-and-dance sequence after another, introducing club devotees Suzen (Obinne Onyeador), Donna (Krystal Gem), Bambi (Daniela Hernandez), Nick (Sonny Felis), and many more, and other than “Love Unconditional,” a power ballad performed by Lucio’s relatively open-minded mother Orfa (Amy Melendez), the Act One focus is on Lucio and the world he’s discovering a mere twenty-five miles west of home, but a world away.

Unfortunately, ARENA: A House MUSIC-al abandons its mostly first-person narrative post intermission to focus on other people’s traumas in a series of emotion-fraught solos performed by characters who up to this point have been largely peripheral, and though Milton David (as Lucio’s father Adan), Giancarlo Garritano (as Jerry, dying of AIDS), and Matthew Noah (as crack-addicted House Mother “Ms. Martin) have phenomenal voices, their confessionals take time away from Lucio’s story, which is ARENA: A House MUSIC-al’s heart.

Director Rigo Tejada proves adept at handling a cast of nearly two dozen (no small task), though an SNL-ready ex-gay meeting is played with such broad comedic strokes that it’s hard it to believe it could co-exist in a musical featuring a memorial service played deadly serious, AIDS ribbons and all.

Still, ARENA: A House MUSIC-al’s heart is in the right place, and its inclusion of trans characters like Bambi and Gilbert (Alejandro Lechuga) and non-Latino POCs suggests that even back in the ‘90s, Arena was decades ahead of its time.

Songs (by Benjamin Emory Larson and music director Gabrielle Maldonado, with additional songs by Daniel Sugimoto) aren’t all gems (and I could have done with fewer ballads), but the up-tempo numbers capture the house music sound that filled dance clubs from Rage to Micky’s to Arena itself, and I enjoyed the way snippets of actual ‘90s club hits get snuck in here and there.

 I can’t rave enough about Valle’s rising-star turn in a musical whose success depends largely on who gets cast as Lucio, and I also particularly liked big-voiced Chrissi Erikson as Lucio’s eagerly supportive younger sister and Melendez as a mother whose love transcends any prejudices she might have been carefully taught, and Noah is a veritable force of nature as Ms. Martin.

Completing the cast are so many minor characters that you might need a scorecard to keep up with who’s who, but having all of the aforementioned performers and Casey Alcoser (Erik), Christopher Baker (Octavio), Victor Becerra (Joaquin), Michael “Berck” Berckart (Gene), Bella Bilandzija, Alexander Huntley, Bryant Melton (Michael, News Reporter, Bartender), Angelica Omelas, David Reza (Marcos), dance captain Jocelyn Sanchez (Nancy, House of Mirage Dancer), and Jenna Small (DJ Irene) filling the Casa 0101 stage, it’s easy to feel you are in Arena itself, something a smaller cast would have made impossible.

Scenic designer Marco De León niftily scales down the real Arena to 99-seat-theater dimension, a design that includes a clever fold-out San Gabriel Valley kitchen.

Alejandro Parra’s lighting includes a dazzling array of club-light effects, Itzel Ocampo’s projection design adds to the club ambience, and sound engineer Cesar Castro does a mostly good job of mixing amped voices and background tracks, though some characters could not be heard clearly at the performance reviewed.

Still, ARENA: A House MUSIC-al’s biggest design plus is its array of ‘90s costumes and wigs, from everyday wear to dance club spectacular designed by Bad Burro, Jose Huizar, Jules Bronola, Omar Gutierrez, Tony Ininguez, and Robert Ortiz.

Luis Ceja alternates in the role of Ms. Martin. Alex Honorato understudies the role of Lucio and Becerra understudies Gilbert.

ARENA: A House MUSIC-al is produced by Emmanuel Deleage and presented by TNH Productions, Casa 0101, El Centro del Pueblo, and Councilmember Gil Cedillo.

Jerry A. Blackburn is assistant to the director. Patricia Zamorano is dramaturg. Max Brother is technical director and Gregory Parker is assistant technical director. Steve Moyer is publicist.

Daniel Corona and Cassandra Gutierrez are stage managers and Ernesto Lopez is assistant stage manager.

I’ve been told that ARENA: A House MUSIC-al originally ran even longer than its current three hours (including intermission), and it is to its creators’ credit that cuts were made.

Still, painful as it would be for its creative team to shorten it even further, I can’t help thinking that this World Premiere musical would be even better if it kept its focus squarely on the young man through whose eyes a whole new world lay just twenty-five miles away.

CASA 0101 Theatre, 2102 E. 1st Street, Los Angeles.
www.casa0101.org

–Steven Stanley
June 23, 2022
Photos: José Miranda

Tags: Abel Alvarado, Casa 0101, Los Angeles Theater Review