Prolific Filipino-American playwright Boni B. Alvarez takes audiences on the most thrilling and danger-packed of WWII escapes in Mix-Mix: The Filipino Adventures of a German Jewish Boy, a fact-based action-adventure epic as vividly cinematic as it is imaginatively theatrical.

The year is 1945, war has been raging in Europe since Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and in the Pacific since Pearl Harbor two years later, and during that time the Philippines has become a refuge for over a thousand German Jews fleeing the Third Reich, among them Isaac and Lena Preissman (Mark Doerr and Jill Remez) and their 12-year-old son Rudy (Casey J. Adler).

Now unfortunately, following six years of relative safety, the Preissmans must embark on a danger-packed escape from Japanese soldiers bent on eliminating the islands’ German and Austrian immigrant population, accompanied on their trek up Mount Banahao by a band of Filipino guerrillas tasked with safeguarding both the German Jews and the active volcano considered sacred by the local populace.

It’s an escape fraught with the perils of falling, of injury, of death either by accident or illness, and perhaps most frightening of all, of being found by the Japanese.

It’s also the kind of heroic saga that could easily form the basis for a Hollywood blockbuster with thrill-a-minute action sequences, a nine-figure-budget, and a cast of thousands.

Playwrights’ Arena, Latino Theater Company, and director Jon Lawrence Rivera accomplish all this for far fewer dollars (and with a grand total of nine actors) in a team effort featuring the most inspired of production designs and choreographed sequences that include a dance “down winding paths, over rocks and logs and tree roots,” a boar hunt that blends traditional Yemenite and Igorot moves, and a burial dance showcasing the Filipino martial art known as Escrima.

Flashback sequences recall 4-year-old Rudy being taught how to use a knife by an older German boy named Horst (Doerr) who’s become a member of Hitler’s Youth, an 8-year-old Rudy romancing his “older” girlfriend Frieda (Doerr again) in a Manila elementary school, and a 12-year-old Rudy being schooled in the Torah by Cantor Weissman (Remez).

And all the while the trekkers keep up their exhausting hike, wondering who among them will fail to make it to the top and who will survive to tell their tale to future generations.

Adult actor Adler is plucky preteen perfection as the titular German Jewish Boy, whose memories of chaperoning rising star Paloma Palma (Giselle “G” Tongi) on a Manila film set opposite matinee idol Sebastian Espiritu (Kennedy Kabasares) captivate not only ten-year-old Mousie (the delightful Angelita Esperanza in precocious charmer mode) and “third musketeer” Zar (Alexis Camins, terrific as the spunky 16-year-old) but Mix-Mix audience members as well.

Doerr, Kabasares, Myra Cris Ocenar, Remez, Tongi, and Wilson play anywhere from two to five roles each, allowing all six to demonstrate as much versatility as stamina in this most physically taxing and emotionally demanding of productions.

It’s also as visually stunning a show as you’ll see around town thanks not only to choreographer Regie Lee’s enthralling dance sequences (including an improvised bar mitzvah to celebrate Rudy’s 13th-birthday) but also to Christopher Scott Murillo’s ingenious multi-level, multi-locale set, stunningly lit by Azra King-Abadi and featuring Nicholas Santiago’s gorgeous, scene-setting projections, a Grade-A production design completed by Mylette Nora’s quick-change, character-establishing costumes, Lily Bartenstein’s abundance of indoor-outdoor props, and Jesse Mandapat’s sound-design mix of action movie underscoring and wilderness sound effects, with Alvin Catacutan’s fight choreography as exciting an realistic as it gets.

Letitia D Chang is production stage manager and Sam Pribyl is assistant stage manager. May Fei is production manager. Arnab Banjeri is dramaturg. Casting is by Raul Staggs. Arianne Villareal is understudy. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

 Quite unlike anything Boni B. Alvarez has written before, Mix-Mix: The Filipino Adventures of a German Jewish Boy not only shines a light on a bona fide band of WWII heroes but does so in the most riveting and awe-inspiring of ways.

That the real-life Rudy, 93-year-old Ralph J. Preiss, was there at the Los Angeles Theatre Center to celebrate opening night last week is icing on the cake.

Playwrights’ Arena and Latino Theater Company, Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles.
www.latinotheaterco.org

–Steven Stanley
May 24, 2024
Photos: Grettel Cortes Photography