Playwright Ricardo Gamboa and the cast have created interesting, flawed human beings.
First produced last fall at the Free Street Storyfront space in Back of the
Yards, this remarkable revival chronicles, in a series of short, sweet
scenes and heartfelt monologues, the loves and likes of various Chicago
Chicanos: an uncloseted gay man who defies his father's homophobia, a
daring tagger yearning for his place in history, a teenager at once amused
and appalled by the preparations for her quinceañera (the most humiliating
moment must be when her abuela insists she enhance the bustline of her
dress with Perdue frozen chicken breast fillets), and a late-middle-aged
father coping with alcoholism and anger issues. In less capable hands these characters could have become mere cartoons or,
worse, romanticized agitprop characters, but native south-sider Ricardo
Gamboa, who wrote the show and codirected it with Ana Velazquez, has the
clear eye of a gifted comic writer.…
Playwright Ricardo Gamboa and the cast have created interesting, flawed human beings.
First produced last fall at the Free Street Storyfront space in Back of the
Yards, this remarkable revival chronicles, in a series of short, sweet
scenes and heartfelt monologues, the loves and likes of various Chicago
Chicanos: an uncloseted gay man who defies his father's homophobia, a
daring tagger yearning for his place in history, a teenager at once amused
and appalled by the preparations for her quinceañera (the most humiliating
moment must be when her abuela insists she enhance the bustline of her
dress with Perdue frozen chicken breast fillets), and a late-middle-aged
father coping with alcoholism and anger issues. In less capable hands these characters could have become mere cartoons or,
worse, romanticized agitprop characters, but native south-sider Ricardo
Gamboa, who wrote the show and codirected it with Ana Velazquez, has the
clear eye of a gifted comic writer.…