REVIEW: Speak Spanish to Me

Speak Spanish to Me speaks to the power of love

Faces in the crowd LPM and friends make their appearance at a showing of Speak Spanish to Me. View gallery>>

Actors Theatre’s premiere of a new play especially commissioned for Valley theater lovers is a exciting and entertaining production  – especially if you are Latino who has ever loved a gabacha, or a White woman who has ever loved a Latino.

Judging from the mixed couples present in the audience Thursday night, this meeting and romantic melding of cultures is more common than some think. We are becoming a multi-cultural society as love relentlessly transcends cultural boundaries.

The play by Yale-educated Columbian Bernardo Solano is the eternal Muchacho-meets-Girl plot, but with twists that manifest in a hilarious and poignant way.

We  at Latino Perspectives love art and media that busts stereotypes, and once the two main actors are introduced, the hammer of reality falls repeatedly upon the mistaken preconceptions and false images both cultures have of each other. 

Local Valley actor Marcelino Quiñonez as Frank, and Brittany Schoenborn as Liz shine in their first outings with Actors Theatre. The play setting is the Arizona State University campus in Tempe, captured brilliantly through the use of mixed media. Mixed media is used throughout the play, reflecting the way that Under Twenties use modern media to communicate and interact socially. Both actors currently attend ASU’s theater program, so the setting was natural to them.

Richard Trujillo, another Latino actor who now lives in L.A., was a scene-stealer with his portrayal of Rick,  a prosperous Baby Boomer, Republican businessman who is Frank’s dad. Seems that widower dad has just married a trophy wife Angla, signaling that the intercultural interactions that occur between Frank and Liz ripple in older generations, too.

Actors Jenn Banda as a ASU Latin American poetry professor, and Cathan Bordyn as Nate, the rap-talkin’, white student who befriends Frank and Liz, gave hilarious  performances.  

As the play progresses, and the characters push past the superficial misconceptions of each other, the message is sent that once we get to know each other, we are at our essence just people with common hopes and aspirations to love and be loved.

Go see this play before it ends on Sunday, May 11. It’s definitely one not to miss.