THEATER REVIEW : Story Struggles to Reconcile Mexican, U.S Values

The first element one expects to be struck by in “Simply Maria, or the American Dream” is that it is the work of a young playwright, Josefina Lopez, who was only 17 when she sent the play to the California Young Playwrights Project two years ago.

How delightful then to find that this one-act play, as seen in a KPBS-TV production, is a touching tale of a young girl’s struggle to reconcile her traditional Mexican values with America. The play has rough edges, both in production and writing, but an unmistakably strong--and often funny--voice clearly comes through.

Frankly autobiographical, “Simply Maria,” a co-production by Sarah Luft of KPBS-TV and Deborah Salzer of the playwrights project, tackles the marriage of her parents and the lessons they try to impart in brief vignettes that move swiftly from reality to fantasy. To be a good Mexican girl, must Maria marry and have children just like her mother? As an American girl, isn’t she entitled to compete and explore and have adventures? And can she be a hybrid, a hyphenated Mexican-American, walking a tightrope between two cultures, without compromising herself?

What saves Lopez’s strong, feminist message from being didactic is her biting sense of humor and her style, as witnessed in a wedding scene. The priest asks the woman a long litany of questions, including, “Do you promise to love him even if he beats you and in return ask for nothing?” and ends with “You may pet the bride.”

Lopez’s courage in following the furthest reaches of her own imagination is her strength. Her creation of three female figures, who serve a variety of roles from Greek chorus to Maria’s inner and outer voices, is inspired. Her flaw is that she does not focus more attention on her central character.

Then, too, her youth shows in the groping way in which she tries to deal with passion.

If we could see more of Maria’s tenderness in her relations with her parents or the Mexican boy she fantasizes as marrying, the conflict in her heart would be more deeply affecting.

The direction by Luis Torner and Donn Johnson keeps things flowing nicely. There is an innocence to the unpolished but earnest acting by the ensemble--a simplicity matched by Beeb Salzer’s utilitarian set design. Amy Jacobson’s performance as Maria stands out in its exploration of the painful shadows lurking under the role. Lawrence Czoka’s sound design weaves in a subtle, but unmistakably Mexican flavor.

The playwrights project, which encourages young writers to express themselves, could not have found a better ambassador than Lopez, who seems so utterly unafraid to say what she thinks. One moment she attacks Mexican machismo, in the next she guns down America in a scene in which Maria’s father is sneaking into the country. While the Statue of Liberty smiles beneficently on some immigrants, it is quite a different story as she turns her torch into a spotlight in an attempt to stop Maria’s father from entering the United States.

Despite Lopez’s complaints with her father, they have something in common--there is no stopping her, either.