By Sandi Masori
CHULA VISTA, California — Third Avenue in Chula Vista is a cute little street full of restaurants and shops. It’s also home to the 67-seat Onstage Playhouse.
San Diego county is lucky to have a vibrant theater scene with world-class writers, directors and actors in our own backyard. Sure, we all know about the big theaters, like the Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, but we also have a number of smaller playhouses, like Onstage Playhouse that are putting out incredible works.
It was there that I had the opportunity to see the world premiere of a very local show Mugre, written by local playwright and Mexican Jewish community member Salomon Maya.
Set in a carwash in Chula Vista, this multilingual show is about families — both born and discovered. Don’t worry if you don’t speak Spanish, the most important parts are in English, and Spanish is used to give it color and flavor. It is mostly slang. You will be able to get what’s going on from the context, and in those few places where you may not understand, one of the characters will explain.
We meet the staff of the Los Mojados (The Wet Ones) carwash as they are worrying about a new automated carwash coming across the street. Veteran employees Pancho (Paul Araujo), Pato (Marcel Ferrin), and Jerry (John Carroll) are joined by Isabella “a Latina with balls” (Adriana Cuba) who has just come from Mexico City and is looking for her dad. She travels with a ghost of sorts who we later learn is her sister Esperanza (Vanessa Lopez).
Through the course of a few days in the carwash, we see how members of this “found family” takes care of each other. Through their conversations, we are exposed to both the simple trials and tribulations of their life as laborers and also explore some of the bigger issues that they face, like colorism, discrimination, rude patrons, and a lack of opportunity.
The show will take you through all the emotions — you will laugh, and you will tear up. It will also make you think. You really get a sense of the heart and the hard work that the carwash employees put in. You also glimpse the issues they deal with. In one scene, they are sheltering from a huge storm, and everyone comes into work because they all know that as soon as the rain ends, the “blonde women in minivans” will come out to wash their cars. Some women in the audience may have had to check themselves a little and to see if they were one of the “Karens” they were talking about.
There are local and pop culture references sprinkled all through the show. At one point after a night of drinking a couple of the guys go to local landmark Tacos El Gordo, they reference COVID and even President Obama. It’s clearly a contemporary work.
The acting was on par with the larger productions, and I was surprised to learn that none of the actors was equity for this show. The theater has worked with equity actors, but not in this case. Playwright Maya told me that this was only the second show that Cuba had ever done in English, and that Araujo stepped in for another actor who was unable to do the show and only had a total of three weeks to rehearse. It’s hard to pick a stand-out for this 5-actor cast as they all worked so well together and really sold their roles. Director James P. Darvas did a phenomenal job with the blocking and use of space- though the theater is tiny, they used every inch of it, sometimes even coming out into the audience.
I asked Maya about the dual languages, and told him that I was fairly proud of myself for understanding as much as I did (thank you 8th grade Spanish teacher), though I did ask him what mugre meant. He told me that there’s no exact translation, but it’s approximate meaning is filth or grime. Schmutz, in other words.
In the original script he had a monologue for Esperanza that explained the concept of mugre, but that over the 15 revisions in the 6 years of writing and workshopping, Darvas convinced him to let it go, advising him to trust the audience would be smart enough to get the context and didn’t need to be spoon-fed. He was right, though I could not translate the word, I certainly got the gist.
It’s not often that you get to meet and ask questions of the playwright, so I was very curious about the process itself. Where did the inspiration come from? Maya shared with me that he sees himself in Jerry, and his dad in Pancho. He always liked writing about trapped people – that is people who were trapped in a place, or in their mind, or in their emotions. He feels that what you do when you’re trapped really shows your humanity.
He wrote this play originally in 2017, and then put it to the side as he worked on other pieces. Then Darvas came to him and said that he needed a play for Onstage in Chula Vista. So Maya said that he had a play about a carwash, and submitted it to Darvas. Darvas said that it was okay, but not great and it needed work. So, Maya went back to the drawing board and worked on it some more. They also did several workshops on it, which actors Ferrin and Lopez participated in, and two years later it was finally ready for an audience.
Where does it go next? Maya’s not sure. He’d love to see it turned into a series, or maybe taken on tour or licensed to other California stages.
We’re really lucky in San Diego to have so many community theaters and so much talent. As we all know, it’s been a tough few years for theaters, and most of them are struggling. I think it’s really important to support them, and take in shows even if on the surface it may not seem like a topic you’d be interested in. You will probably find yourself pleasantly surprised. If we don’t support these smaller theaters that are turning out very solid works, they won’t be able to continue, and that would really be a shame. And as Maya said “We are a theater that is putting out La Jolla Playhouse, Old Globe quality. Chula Vista is a thriving arts community, and we need more people from north of the (Interstate) 8 to come down and see this play.”
Mugre is an excellent opportunity for some people who have been marginalized to see themselves and their stories on stage and for others who have been more privileged to learn a bit more about people they may pass every day and never really thought about. I know that I will not look at my local carwash workers the same way again.
The show is playing through September 24. They’re doing something really interesting, and a little risky with the ticket sales, and that is that tickets cost whatever you want to donate. They suggest at least $10, but if you don’t have that, it’s okay. And if you can afford to donate more, that’s also okay.
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Sandi Masori is a food and theatre reviewer for San Diego Jewish World. When she’s not covering food or theatre, she helps authors self-publish, hangs out with her kids, and searches for the best sushi in town.
Great show!