Sanctuary City, Martyna Majok’s gripping, thought-provoking examination the plight of undocumented Americanized teens now makes a stunning Orange County debut at Anaheim’s Chance Theater.

The Polish-American playwright’s 2021 off-Broadway hit focuses on Newark high schoolers B (Spike Pulice) and G (Vicky Yvonne), whose best friendship stems in large part from the fact that each is the child of an undocumented immigrant, a reality now complicated by B’s announcement that his mother, exploited at work by a boss who might at any time denounce her to immigration, has decided to return to her home country.

G, meanwhile, has problems of her own, chiefly her mother’s physically abusive live-in lover, whose repeated blows have kept G home from school on multiple occasions, each act of violence prompting a different invented excuse, and like her best friend’s mother, G’s too lives in fear of being denounced as undocumented, in this case by a man who uses threats to thwart any attempt at escape.

Sanctuary City’s first half unfolds as a series of rapid-fire snippets of conversation, many of them in B’s room, as G repeatedly climbs her friend’s fire escape to seek refuge from an untenable home environment.

A pair of major events then further complicates B and G’s already chaotic lives, upon which a five-year flash-forward takes us to B’s apartment where a third character (Jonathan Keyes’ Henry) further complicates G’s already problematic return to Newark after years of absence.

Much has been written and televised and screened about the plight of undocumented teens like B and G, and though Sanctuary City revolves around these same concerns, it is not the “issue play” a lesser writer than Majok might have constructed.

What makes Majok’s play so compelling and conversation-provoking is its focus, not on headlines, but on three complex individuals, whose motivations the playwright leaves it to us to analyze and dissect, and never more so than in the fiery three-character confrontation that leads to the play’s gut-punching final moments. (It’s worth noting that Sanctuary City’s 2001-2006 timeframe situates it years before DACA and the legalization of same-sex marriage.)

It’s been three years since Chance Theater artistic director Oanh Nguyen last directed a play at his home base, and as a Vietnamese American he is uniquely qualified to bring Marjok’s immigrant characters to authentic life.

More importantly, the electricity of his direction and the performances he has elicited on the uber-intimate Fyda-Mar stage prove second to none.

Pulice digs deep into B’s soul to give us a young man facing multiple crossroads in his life, torn between his desire to help his best friend and his own desperation to find security and fulfilment in a country he feels he has every right to call home.

Yvonne is equally powerful as a young woman willing to do whatever it takes to keep her bff safe, a resolve sorely tested when she is confronted by a truth that is more easily understood than accepted, a knowledge that brings out the worst in a young woman who is essentially a good person at heart.

Keyes’ appearance halfway through not only ups the stakes but gives the young actor the opportunity to reveal his own dramatic chops when Henry is asked to make compromises that may be beyond his capacity to make.

Fred Kinney’s strikingly abstract set features the “Missing” photos of those lost in the Twin Towers and others disappeared by ICE and his costumes are terrific choices too.

Most stunning of all are Andrew Hungerford’s sound and lighting, designs that begin by enhancing the chaotic jolts of Sanctuary City’s its first forty-five or so minutes before then contributing impressively to the real-time realism to its concluding half.

Shinshin Yuder Tsai is assistant director. Jasmine Sunoo-Flanders is dramaturg. Jordyn Nieblas-Galvan is stage manager.

Sanctuary City may be set in a specific time and place, but its characters and the dilemmas they face ring even truer now than they did when the play debuted. Expect to be riveted from the moment G first climbs B’s fire escape to Sanctuary City’s final, shattering fade to black.

Chance Theater, 5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills. Through June 7. Fridays at 8:00, Saturdays at 3:00 and 8:00, Sundays at 3:00.
www.chancetheater.com

–Steven Stanley
May 9, 2026
Photos: Doug Catiller

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

Tags: Chance Theater, Martyna Majok, Orange County Theater Review