The dog days of summer in Miami
“Miami HAS a unique kind of energy,” says David Ellenstein, director of the world premiere of Melinda Lopez’s “Alexandros,” opening Saturday at the Laguna Playhouse. There’s “machismo from the men, an exciting danger in the air and a sense of ‘anything could happen.’ ”
And anything could happen in Lopez’s Miami-set story, even at a grandmother’s 75th birthday party, where members of a Cuban American family and their dog unite to figure out who they are and where to hide the evidence.
Ultimately the truth is revealed through the insight of Abuela, whose Santeria prophecies lend an element of magical realism to a farcical story rooted in the playwright’s life experiences.
“I don’t use that term [magical realism],” says Lopez. “In my mind [Abuela’s beliefs] are all true. It’s how members of my family engage with the world.”
Different perspectives are also part of shaping a new play from a manuscript into a production.
“David is good at harnessing the actors’ impulses and giving [the work] a form,” Lopez says. She expanded “Alexandros” from a 15-minute monologue, and the rehearsal process led to further revisions.
“You take your 80 pages and when you pass it on to the director, it’s not yours; it’s everyone’s,” the playwright explains. “And everyone’s ideas make it better.”
Auditions for the show were held in Los Angeles and New York, where actress Saundra Santiago was brought into the mix.
“It’s the first time I read a script and just laughed out loud,” she says. Her Maritza -- a high-strung doctor’s wife who drives to Miami from Texas for Abuela’s party -- serves as the “engine of the play, and I’ve got to make it run,” says Santiago.
The former “Miami Vice” star is no stranger to scandal in South Florida but wonders about opening the show in California’s Orange County, home of the Laguna Playhouse as well as the birth- and final resting place of one Richard Milhous Nixon.
“Alexandros” takes place on August 8, 1974: the date President Nixon announced his resignation in response to the growing likelihood of his impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate for his involvement in the Watergate scandal.
Ellenstein was working at a shop in Westwood when he heard about Nixon’s resignation on the radio. “You wanted to cheer,” he says.
When it comes to the revelations of their own secrets and scandals, the characters in Lopez’s play greet them with considerably more mixed emotions. In the end, the smoking gun is the family’s ill-tempered, 15-year-old dog Alexandros, the title character.
The dog is created through puppetry and sound effects rather than a canine actor, which is fortunate, considering “he bites,” Ellenstein says.
“It’s a big day for the nation, a big day for the family and a big day for the dog,” says Lopez.
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‘ALEXANDROS’
WHERE: 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach
WHEN: Opens 7:30 p.m. Sat.; runs 8 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 2 and 8 p.m. Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. (also 2 p.m. June 12 and 7 p.m. June 22), closes June 29.
PRICE: $30-$59.
INFO: (949) 497-2787; www.lagunaplayhouse.com
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