An Uber ride through the traffic-jammed streets of Midtown Manhattan proves life-changing for both driver and passenger in Juan José Alfonso’s Middle Of The World, a compelling, thought-provoking, surprise-packed Rogue Machine Theatre West Coast Premiere now playing at the Matrix.

Uber driver Victoria Rojas (Cheryl Umaña) quickly deduces from the spot where she picks up her younger, smartly-dressed African-American passenger that Glenn Joiner (Christian Telesmar) must be a “big shot” at Deutsche Bank, an institution Victoria may not deem as bad as some other “capitalist dinosaurs,” but nonetheless still “exploits the masses.”

Hardly the friendliest way to great one’s latest passenger, and when Glenn explains that he’s not “some bougie rich guy” but someone who grew up poor in the Chicago projects, Victoria drops her first bombshell.

It turns out she knows the Windy City almost as well as Glenn does having earned her Ph.D. in Applied Economics from the University of Chicago after getting her Masters at Yale … and that’s not all.

Before emigrating to the States, Victoria worked “in upper management” in Quito, Ecuador, but not as Glenn surmises at an international conglomerate like Phillip Morris or Coca Cola.

What pops out of Victoria’s mouth next is a job title I’ll leave it to you to discover because it’s pretty much the last thing you’d expect your Uber driver to have on her resumé.

And this is just the beginning of playwright Alfonso’s ninety-minute look at international business and politics, and in particular, at America’s long history of interference in Latin America affairs, something Victoria knows all too well.

It’s also the story of two people whose first meeting will not be their providing Victoria agrees to quit her job at Uber and become Glenn’s personal chauffeur, and of two lives irrevocably altered for having become intertwined on one fateful New York City evening.

Alfonso peppers Middle Of The World with enough laughs that there are times you might even consider it a comedy, from Glenn and Victoria’s antagonistically flirtatious banter to the comic interchanges Glenn has with his smart-alecky work colleague Warren Lim (Dan Lin), who shoots out lines like “Bruh, you don’t need a driver. You need a dirty one-night stand with an old chick, so you can wipe Justine from your memory.”

Completing the cast of characters are Bob Gonzalez (Leandro Cano), a Tex-Mex mover-shaker whom Victoria knew back in Ecuador, and Barbara Blanchard (Jennifer Pollono), the NYC attorney who’s doing her darndest to facilitate Victoria’s return to her home country, one her client hopes will make possible a much longed-for reconciliation with her estranged eighteen-year-old son.

Director Guillermo Cienfuegos elicits a pair of bang-up lead performances and three terrific supporting turns from his pitch-perfect cast, most of whom he directed in Middle Of The World’s World Premiere at Boise Contemporary Theatre this past fall.

A fiery, commanding Umaña slowly peals back hidden layers of pain beneath Victoria’s confident, acerbic façade, and Telesmar gives Glenn the kind of leading man charisma, power, depth, and sex appeal that made Sydney, Denzel, and Taye A-list stars.

Lim proves such a scene stealer as Warren that it’s no wonder Rogue Machine brought him down from Boise to make his L.A. stage debut, Cano’s Bob is as disarmingly charming as he is cold-blooded, and Pollono is terrific as always as a woman who’s doing her best to help her client out of a virtually unsolvable mess.

Nicholas Hewitt’s moving-paneled set facilitates Middle Of The World’s twenty-one intricately choreographed scene changes in the way a less ingenious scenic design would not as Michelle Hanzelova-Bierbauer’s watercolor-like projections set both scene and mood.

Lighting designer Andrew Hungerford, sound designer Peter John Still, costume designer Christine Cover Ferro, and prop designer/painter Lily Kennedy complete another topnotch Rogue Machine production design.

Middle Of The World is produced by Ramón Valdez and John Perrin Flynn.

Christopher Moscatiello is sound consultant. Mark Mendelson is scenic artist. Jaime Nebeker is intimacy director. Joe McClean and Dane Bowman are technical co-directors. Teak Piegdon is dresser/running crew. Victoria Hoffman is resident casting director. Judith Borne is publicist.

Rachel Ann Manheimer is stage manager and Arielle Hightower is assistant stage manager.

From Day One, Rogue Machine Theatre quickly established itself as one of L.A.’s finest and most cutting-edge membership theater companies. Countless awards later, Middle Of The World now gets Rogue Machine’s Season Sweet Sixteen started off with a bang.

Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles.
www.roguemachinetheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
February 9. 2024
Photos: Jeff Lorch

Tags: Juan José Alfonso, Los Angeles Theater Review, Rogue Machine Theatre