En Mi Jardín (In My Garden) by various writers

 By Joe Straw 

Casa 0101 Theater presents the inaugural production of En Mi Jardín (In My Garden) healing with our stories – a 10-minute New Works play festival of 13 new plays through May 12^th, 2024.

En Mi Jardín was created as part of a twenty-week writing program created by Lorena M. Ortega, Lorena Ramirez, Kerri K. Ramos and Connie Valencia, PhD as part craft and part of a healing modality.  The exercise of the craft was to write a 10-minute play that allows a character to have a final conversation with someone who is no longer in their life. It is a healthy and much needed exercise for this group of Latino writers to create and showcase their craft and present on the stage at Casa 0101 and leave it to Casa to bring these lives and stories to the forefront.

En Mi Jardín is probably a metaphor for an inner life, a noise within, a story captured hidden deep beyond the visuals of mental gardens, tucked behind the leaves of the Coleus plant, and just waiting to be a part of the sensory explosion within all writers.     

Those who come to witness the performances want to see like-minded people creating and performing their craft.  It is inspirational in scope, and on this night, there was a very sizable crowd enjoying every minute.

Se Queman Los Sopes (The Patties Are Burning) by Christian Gama and directed by Emmanuel Deleage is an exceptional play about a man confessing to his grandmother after her death. Mostly in Spanish both Christian Gama and Raquel Salinas are wonderful in the roles. It is a testament of how something so purely written can bring so much joy. 

L - R Raquel Salina and Itzel Ocampo

El Secreto de la Abuela (Grandmother’s Secret) written by Itzel Ocampo and directed by Lorena M. Ortega is also delightful in its simplicity and the way it moves from moment to moment. The performances from Itzel Ocampo as Isel and Raquel Salina as Abuelita are exceptional. Bella Calderon, Lucy Wetzel, and Etienne Deleage contribute with voiceovers.

L - R Karla Ojeda and Vanessa Arias-Herrera

Chillona or Chingona (Screeching or Bad Ass Woman) written by Yvonne Garcia Zaher and directed by Emmanuel Deleage is another winner featuring Itzel Ocampo as Young Blanca, Vanessa Arias-Herrera as the Older Blanca, Christina Gama as Doctor, and Karla Ojeda as Frida Kahlo. This is Vanessa Arias-Herrera’s best performance of the night as she is in many of the plays.  Karla Ojeda is wonderful as Frida Kahlo coming back from the dead in full form.

My Brother’s Dad written by Martin Barrera and directed by Emmanuel Deleage.  This one has its moments featuring Martin Barrera as Martin, Juanita Zavaleta as the Therapist, and Martin Morales as Dad. Martin Morales provides many layers to the character including a man who ultimately lacks sincerity in his confrontation with his son. Getting the truth from the man who lacks that honorific provides a lot of conflict in the scene and it played very well on this night.

The measure of a successful professor is the ability to encourage despite the overflowing student tears that questions her abilities to overcome. The opposite is true in She Believed She Could by Connie Valencia, PhD directed by Lorena M. Ortega where a student Connie (Chrissi Erickson) is discouraged by a counselor (Vanessa Arias-Herrera) at a university.  Connie, although making C’s and B’s, is told those grades won’t make her a doctor but Connie, with the help of her friend Pilar (Bernadette Bolaños) believes in herself and is determined to achieve her dreams.

L - R Vanessa Arias-Herrera and Lorena Ramirez

Keeping Up With the Maid by Lorena Ramirez and directed by Lorena M. Ortega was the real-life experience of Lorena Ramirez, a maid who was belittled by the Beverly Hills homeowners Mrs. Henderson (Vanessa Arias-Herrera) and Mr. Henderson (Steve Loya Hernandez). Ramirez reaches a breaking point when her employers take her to the limit and her performance struck a very nice and sincere chord.   There is a lot to enjoy about this play especially when it showcases two rich people who are out of touch with humanity and a mother who will never give up on her child.   

Seasick, Yet Still Docked written by Kerri K. Ramos and directed by Lorena M. Ortega is the story of two sisters, one who must make amends to her dying father who really didn’t appreciate what she had become in life. This play needed to solidify the relationships - sisters and father - and move in a way that establishes a verified truth that an audience can relate to. The staging was a bit awkward with the daughter knocking on a projected door, the father coming around a curtain, and then more knocking with the father coming around the curtain again.  Michelle Lopez was Kerri, Chrissi Erickson was Bridget, and Michael Berckart as Red. 

There is something there in When Love Isn’t Enough by Bernadette Bolaños and directed by Emmanuel Deleage, but in this play we haven’t found what the there is. Bernadette (Bernadette Bolaños) gets advice from her deceased mother (Lorena Ramirez) wanting Bernadette to speak with her father (Steve Loya Hernandez).  But there’s been domestic abuse.  What that might be, we never really know.  Her mother thinks that Bernadette speaking to her father might lead to lessening the trauma of those early years, but Bernadette has a hard time reconciling even though her father has been trying for years without success. Also included in this play are Karla Ojeda (Woman with Baby), Michelle Lope as Lucy and Juanita Zavalet as Kat. 

L - R Vanessa Arias-Herrera and Martin Morales

Arturo Urista wrote Charity and Penance directed by Emmanuel Deleage. Arturoo (Martin Morales comes to pay a visit to Sister Karen Boccajero (Vanessa Arias-Herrera) at Self Help Graphics and Art. Arturoo is revisiting his old haunting grounds to pay respect to the Sister. But the Sister is not having any of his accolades and seems non plussed sitting back and smoking cigarettes listening to Arturoo get to the point. There’s more here than meets the eye.  The sister needs something from him and he, in turn, requires something in her that doesn’t quite happen. The dialogue by Urista is clever, nicely written, moving in ways that cuts directly to the chase, and gets to the matter at hand.  

Itzel Ocampo had a terrific night in all the plays she was in and The One Where Chula Grows Up written by Juanita Zavaleta and directed was no exception. She plays Chulita as a teenager next to her grown up self-Chula (Juanita Zavaleta).  The play is said to be a love letter to her teenage self and in many respects it was.  But theatre is conflict with love in conflict and certainly one can find conflict with your younger self.

Black Sheep, Rainbow Sheep by Martin Olvera and directed by Emmanuel Deleage was different and a lot of fun but I didn’t quite get this one. Michael Berckart as Martin, Karla Ojeda as Leonor, Chrissi Erickson as Sylvia, and Martín Morales as Arturo. 

Also featured on this night was Two Sisters on the Red Road by Doreen Sanchez and directed by Lorena M. Ortega with Bernadette Bolaños as Elena Dominguez Chavez, Raquel Salinas as Sister, Martin Barrera as an Interpersonal Assistant, and Acolmixtli J.T. Ortega as a voiceover.  And, Shattered Bonds by Michelle Lopez directed by Emmanuel Deleage about a father-daughter relationship with Michelle Lopez as Michi and Chrissi Erickson as Little Michi.

While not everything worked, for whatever reasons (performances, written material, directions), there were some fascinating tidbits and performances that excelled on this night and could have another life in some other venue.

A fascinating thing about a couple of the plays were about race and how a person of the same race can treat or look down upon someone of their own race. For example, the Latino Beverly Hills couple and the Latina guidance counselor.

Some physical things need improving particularly the subtitles projected on the screens. Closer, or lower is better. Also, scene changes need to have a flow to move from one play to the next. This can also be a creative act that moves the action, by action, into the flow of the next play.

That aside, this was a terrific night and Casa 0101 is a Los Angeles treasure!

Other member of this fine production team are as follows:

Angelica Ornelas – Stage Manager

La Doreen – Stage Manager

Mari Mercado – Costume Designer/Prop Master

Alejandro Parra – Lighting Designer

Miguel Delgado – Technical Director

Cesar Retana-Holguin – Set Designer

Matthew Sanchez – Sound Designer

Itzel Ocampo – Projection Designer

Al Aguilar – Production Assistant

Steve Moyer – Public Relations

Soap Studio, Inc. – Playbill Design

Casa 0101 Theatre

2102 E. First Street

Los Angeles, CA. 90033

Tickets: www.casa0101.org