THEATER REVIEW : Sexual Confusion at the Border of ‘Divas’

The talented Guillermo Reyes hasn’t quite decided where to take “Deporting the Divas,” his new play at the Celebration Theatre. “Divas” works best as a series of kitschy sketches on the plight of gay illegal immigrants. In his most original and funniest moments, Reyes uses his subject to riff on the absurdity and insecurity of life itself. But “Divas” descends periodically into a loosely knit play with David Leavitt-like sensitivity about the love life of a Mexican American INS border patrolman secretly attracted to men. When it gets sensitive, the play drags.

Michael (Julian Vicente and also played by Robert Adanto) is the confused, married patrolman who works the San Diego border--”the busiest border on Earth.” He finds himself strangely touched by a gay Mexican wedding he stumbles on in a deserted barn (“Are you sure it wasn’t a disco?” asks his boss). His ambivalence is not helped when he has to deport Miss Fresno (Rene Moreno), a beauty queen who is actually an HIV-positive female impersonator. Life is complicated on the border.

In his detective fiction-fantasy life, Michael flirts with a film noir vixen named Sirena. Sirena (the divine Christopher Liam Moore, with a nod to Charles Busch) is a temptress who seems to have modeled herself after Barbara Stanwyck, Chita Rivera and Bruce Willis. In Sirena’s “Double Indemnity” get-up, delicate smile and purring voice capable of lowering two octaves at the slightest offense, Moore makes every sentence funny. Sometimes, you laugh with no idea why.

On the other side of the fence, the more serious side, Moreno plays Sedicio, a fast-talking young man who yearns for love and falls hard for the dashing Michael, whom he meets in a Spanish class for Latinos who can’t speak Spanish (taught by the funny-in-small-doses Rush Gomez).

Their aborted love affair is documented in the play’s last and longest segment, a playlet called “Why Gay Weddings Make Me Cry.” Moreno proves to be a crackling and moving quick-sketch artist; he makes a lot out of his thinly written character.

But as the object of his affection, Vicente remains wooden, unreadable and unsympathetic. The actors all play multiple roles, except for Vicente, who has his hands full with one. Director Jorge Huerta fields the bright comedy well but he does not develop a through-line to turn a lot of one-liners and a couple of good performances into the scintillating and highly original play that we see glimmers of but that never fully emerges.

* “Deporting the Divas,” Celebration Theatre, 7051 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 4 p.m. Ends April 28. $20. (213) 857-8085. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.