Dreamlandia - 26 Shows Down, 74 to Go

My two immediate reactions to Octavio Solis’s modern magical realist take on life at the US-Mexico border are: 1) the script is bogged down in plot; 2) thank goodness the nonprofit theater system allows an engaging, if flawed, show like this to find an audience, even though that Thursday night audience was less than 20.

 

About that plot—Dreamlandia tracks the uneasy reunion of a fractured family across national borders. Mexican youth cross into the U.S. seeking opportunities, U.S. businessmen establish low-wage factories in Mexico to satisfy the voracious appetites of multinational corporations.  One of the bosses has to keep quiet about his own immigration while a border patrol guard has to keep quiet about his romantic past and estranged, secret family.  A fool and a mystical tour guide, neither of whom are what they seem (but are they ever?), provide diversions, and an animalistic man obsessed with American glamour magazines is a metaphor for imprisonment, cross-cultural and otherwise.

 

The show plays like a telenovela, super dramatic with side dishes of levity.  But at two hours and 45 minutes, it feels drawn out and indulgent. Solis tries to accomplish so much, some ideas work better than others but you get the sense that focusing on two or three stories would have produced a stronger show.  The performances are quite strong, many actors meeting the demands of massive transformations within character or playing both flesh and blood and metaphorical figures.  And I could tell that the small late week crowd drained a bit of their energy.