Motherhood is difficult enough without having to worry about immigration. And immigration is difficult enough without having to worry about having to pay for it. And paying for it is difficult enough without having to spend time away from your family in order to look after someone else's child. Lisa Loomer explores the complexities of this in her comic drama Living Out. The Boulevard Theatre closes out its season with a production of the play that runs through the middle of next month.
Marion Araujo stars as Ana Hernandez--a mother of two who must lie about raising her own child in order to get work as a nanny. After a series of rejections through honesty, she finds work with Nancy Robin. Played by Rachel Lewandowski, Nancy is a first-time mother who works as an entertainment lawyer in Hollywood.
Araujo and Lewandowski work great together at the center of the ensemble. Ana has far more practical knowledge about looking after a baby than Nancy, who is very uneasy about giving up time with her child in the interest of returning to her job. There's a genuine concern between the two characters that is brought to the stage quite vividly here.
Ana is a very strong character. She has one son back home in El Salvador and one here in the US. She must spend time away from both looking after someone else's baby in the interest of making a living. She is put into a position where she has to navigate the complexities of relations with her employer, other nannies and her own husband. In spite of being put in some pretty uncomfortable positions, she is able to come through as an everyday working class hero. Araujo is remarkably charming in the role. And it's really, really nice to see her in the center of the stage for a studio theatre production like this.
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Though Nancy's written to be a slightly insensitive high-power upper-class lawyer, there's more than enough basic humanity in the character to keep her sympathetic. It's that humanity that Lewandowski does such a good job of bringing to the stage. The more clueless and classist ends of the character (which Loomer uses sparingly) are largely lost to Lewandowski, who has summons this overwhelmingly sweet stage presence to the role.
Performances around the edges of the center include a couple of endearing performances by the men in the cast. Jason Will plays Nancy's husband Richard. He's also an attorney, but whereas she's making a great deal of money, he's acting as a public defender. So she's making the bulk of the money, but he's playing the social conscience of the household. Will is fun in the role. Nigel Wade plays Ana's husband Bobby. Bobby's a nice guy who finds himself working the kind of jobs he can get without having full citizenship. Having survived the war in El Salvador, he's got a murky past that he's trying to overcome. Wade does a good job delivering the emotional reality of the character to the stage and his Latin American accent is the second most convincing in the production.
The accents serve as an annoying little distraction. They're a minor detail, so it's not a huge problem. The issue here, though, is that Araujo's accent is so enchantingly beautiful that even the slightest deviation from anything that sounds authentic sounds absolutely grating.
Another minor issue with the production is its treatment of West Coast culture. Part of what Loomer is delivering here is the competitive culture of metropolitan California. There's a subtly cutthroat nature to life out there that she's highlighting here as part of the atmosphere. True, it's a stereotype, but it's a stereotype that she's using to make a point. And though director Beth Monhollen put this production together really well, that sense of subtly brutal competitiveness seems lost to an ensemble of actresses who all seem too nice, warm, caring and well . . . stereotypically midwestern to deliver that end of the atmosphere. They manage a bit of the right feel, but again . . . unless you're nailing that kind of casually heartless aggression just perfectly it feels overwhelmingly weak.
The culture and the accents, though, are minor concerns as the bulk of the plot is centered around the two mothers so enjoyable portrayed by Araujo and Lewandowski in a satisfying end to the Boulevard's 27th season.
The Boulevard Theatre's production of Living Out runs through May 12th at the Boulevard's space on 2252 South Kinnickinnic. For ticket reservations, call 414-744-5757.
