Maine
Poet’s play about finding community in rural Maine is heartwarmingly sweet
Portland Stage’s world premiere manufacturing, “Candy Goats & Blueberry Senoritas,” is a heartwarming, candy and humorous play in regards to the neighborhood individuals from away construct with Maine natives and the enjoyment and sorrow they share with one another.
It’s a story about connection — the connections we are able to’t break irrespective of how a lot we wish to and people who we cling to as a result of they’re our lifelines. It’s a related and well timed manufacturing as a result of reconnecting after practically three years of being six ft aside is proving tough for some.
Written by Bethel resident Richard Blanco and playwright Vanessa Garcia, the manufacturing, directed by Sally Wooden, is an awe-inspiring accomplishment that despatched Saturday’s viewers out of the theater pondering, laughing and sharing tales about their very own experiences of settling within the Pine Tree State. It additionally offers theatergoers a glimpse into the playwrights’ Cuban tradition.
Beatriz (Ashley Alvarez), who goes by Bea, is a primary era American who fled Miami’s Cuban neighborhood and her mom as a youngster for New England. She introduced along with her a present for baking and has a store in a rural Maine city the place she serves Cuban espresso and pastries, together with these within the title.
She is estranged from her mom, Marilyn (Jezabel Montero). Marilyn and brother, Tio Eme (JL Rey), have been two of 14,000 Cuban youngsters between the ages of 4 and 18 secretly delivered to southern Florida between 1960 and 1962. Run by the U.S. State Division and Catholic Charities of Miami, its code identify was Operation Peter Pan. It took Marilyn and Eme’s mother and father seven years to reunite with them in Miami.
In Maine, Bea shares her heritage with neighbors Georgette (Karen Ball) and Maynard (Kevin O’Leary), who’re taking a romantic break from one another, and displaced southerner Blake (Dustin Tucker), who’s baffled by his continued standing as an individual “from away.”
When Tio Eme unexpectedly comes to go to and urges Bea to reconcile along with her mom, the younger lady realizes the significance of household — the one she was born into and the neighborhood that has embraced her in Maine.
One of many funniest moments within the present comes when Bea talks about her journey north. Her uncle challenges Bea about leaving her household behind in Miami when she was 16. “Plus it wasn’t simply shifting to Maine. Or did you neglect how you bought on a bus at 16 and ran away to God is aware of the place,” Tio Eme says.
“New Hampshire,” she replies.
“Who runs away to New Hampshire!” he calls for to know.
Now, that may be a query many Maine residents have requested themselves.
One other iconic scene is when Blake discusses with Bea how lengthy it takes earlier than an individual is taken into account a “Mainah.”
She tells Blake: “Simply ‘cuz the cat has her kittens within the oven doesn’t doesn’t make them biscuits.”
“Why would you place kittens within the oven to start with?! What does that even imply?” he replies. “Three generations within the floor earlier than you’re thought-about a Mainer, we’re manner off.”
Bea agrees that it will likely be a protracted, very long time earlier than both of them is likely to be certified to be known as Mainers. The characters resolve themselves to the inevitability that they’ll at all times be from away.
Each member of this solid is excellent. Throughout the rehearsal course of, the actors have been capable of make ideas to the writers, a uncommon collaboration, in response to this system notes. This can be a tight, close-knit ensemble that realistically portrays what it’s prefer to stay in a small city.
Alvarez and Tucker gentle up the stage with their characters’ personalities and keenness however Bea and Blake anchor the present in actuality. The viewers leaves feeling like they’ve simply spent 90 minutes with their neighbors.
Rey’s Tio Eme is the center of this manufacturing. In spite of everything that he went by means of as a baby, Eme nonetheless is an optimist. His love for all times is so superbly portrayed it washes over the viewers like a excessive tide.
The set design by Anita Stewart, Portland Stage’s creative director, options cutouts of pine timber that ring the proscenium of the stage. That lets the viewers really feel as if they’re watching a neighbor by means of the timber and provides to the manufacturing’s intimate really feel. Costumes by Lily Prentice, lights by SeifAllah Salotto-Christobal and a sound design by Seth Asa Sengel all praise Stewart’s technical imaginative and prescient.
In essence, “Candy Goats & Blueberry Senoritas” does for individuals from away what John Cariani’s “Virtually Maine” did for native Mainers. The brand new manufacturing is also getting patrons again into the Forest Avenue theater. Saturday’s present was practically offered out and which may be Blanco and Garcia’s biggest accomplishment.
“Candy Goats & Blueberry Senoritas” shall be carried out stay by means of Feb. 12 at Portland Stage, 25A Forest Ave., Portland. The play shall be streamed on the theater firm’s web site from Feb. 8 by means of Feb. 26. For ticket info, go to portlandstage.org or name 774-0465.