Among the many failures the Democratic Party made in the run-up to last fall’s presidential election was assuming that its party-of-the-people platform already had the votes of the Black and Hispanic communities locked up.
That mistake is at the heart of L.A.-based Mexican playwright Bernardo Cubría’s funny and thought-provoking 90-minute 2024 play “The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latine Vote,” now in the midst of a rolling world premiere at theaters nationwide.
Its San Diego premiere, which opened Saturday, is being produced this month by TuYo Theatre at Bayfront Charter High School in Chula Vista. TuYo specializes in telling stories from diverse Latinx perspectives.
TuYo co-founder Maria Patrice Amon cleverly directs the briskly paced and heartfelt play, which tells the story of Paola Aguilar, a Mexico-born U.S. college professor with a doctorate in Latinx studies. She’s recruited by strategists for an unnamed (though clearly Democratic) political party to conduct polling research by interviewing American voters of Latin American/Spanish heritage before the November 2024 election.
Although Paola, 39 and single, finds the interview questions stereotypical and insulting, she carries on because she needs the money for artificial insemination treatments.
The play pokes fun at politicians, racist assumptions, sexism, social media and more. But its message is that Americans of Hispanic heritage like Paola are as diverse as everyone else in this country. They don’t vote alike and they don’t agree on how they like to be classified (hence they play’s multi-slash title).
The play’s audience-interactive subplot has Paola enlisting the audience in helping her select the perfect sperm donor, which forces playgoers to address their own suppositions about potential fathers of different ethnicities and how they see themselves.
Leading the cast as Paola is Alejandra Villanueva. She’s a smart, charismatic, in-the-moment actor who’s fully at ease interacting with a live audience and reacting to their unexpected answers.
The satirical political strategy team are played by John D. Culver as the aggressive, corporate-style White guy Kaj; Nancy Batres and Kylie Young as two cellphone-addicted younger women who aren’t as plugged into the Hispanic community as they think they are; Kevane Coleman as the team’s sole Black member. Roberto Castillo comically plays numerous roles, including all of Paola’s boyfriends, potential sperm donors and her IVF doctor.
The TuYo production is minimalist in design, but cleverly conceived, with Samantha Rojales’ multipurpose work and exam table, fun sound design by Eliza Vedar, costumes by Carmen Amon and amusing projection design.
While the play’s prescient message went unheeded last year, it’s a wake-up call for not only political parties but also Americans who assume all people of Hispanic heritage look, think and vote alike. More insight into understanding people’s personal histories and their family dynamics may help pollsters win over voters of all ethnicities in 2028.
‘The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/ Latinx/Latine Vote’
When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: TuYo Theatre at Bayfront Charter High School, 830 Bay Blvd., Chula Vista
Tickets: $20-$25
Online: tuyotheatre.org
