What is ‘The HLLLL Vote’ and why is it on stage now?

Xochitl Romero with a map that names Jamaica and Guyana, but not Belize, Trinidad, Suriname or French Guiana or the smaller Caribbean islands / Ian Flanders

TOPANGA, Calif. — “In 2016 when Trump got elected,” recalls playwright Bernardo Cubría, “I started getting all these text messages from friends of mine, most of whom were white Americans, and they were like, ‘Dude, how could 30% of Latinos or Hispanic people vote for Trump?’

“I was offended by their question; why would they expect every single Latino or Hispanic person from Tijuana to Buenos Aires to think and vote the exact same way? Why do they see us as one single entity? No wonder so many people don’t even feel like they want to participate in voting.”

That reality—the wide diversity of the Latino population in the U.S.—is the topic of his new play The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latiné Vote, which opened on August 24 as the fifth and final play to join the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum’s rotating summer repertory season. The title of the play reflects some of the terminology used by or applied to U.S. citizens and residents of Latin origin.

As the premise of his play, “The Political Party” (i.e., the Democratic Party) is also concerned about the disparity in minority voting patterns. How is it that the African-American vote in the last presidential election was skewed so highly toward the Dems (85%), whereas the HLLLL vote was only 61% favorable?

That’s where Dr. Paola Aguilar (Xochitl Romero) comes in. Daughter of a Mexican father, she’s a professor of Latinx and intersectionality studies, and author of a recent influential book that tries to pull apart and reassemble the “identity” of Latino/as in America. A TPP focus group concentrating on the HLLLL vote, who have all devoured her study, offers her an attractively lucrative consulting position if she will help them overcome some of their biases and blind spots as they attempt to win a larger slice of the Hispanic vote. Her very name suggests a certain ambiguity of identity. “Paula” is the standard feminine version of Paulo, while “Paola” is Italian, indicating perhaps a little pretentiousness, a bit of alienation?

Well, there wouldn’t be play unless she accepted the assignment, but she doesn’t agree to it without hesitation. At 39, survivor of at least two serious relationships in the past, she is now pursuing IVF as her last, best hope to become a single mom. IVF is probably more in the news these days, as one of the Republicans’ most egregious piñata targets, than when the play was first conceived. It’s a tricky, arduous and expensive procedure, with only a 30% success rate, and stress is the last thing she needs during this critical period.

Among the play’s most endearing parts are her thinking-aloud sessions. She poses to the audience the question of accepting the job or not. And then she has to choose the identity and features of the sperm donor, which she airs publicly with the audience. How tall should the donor be? What color? What ethnicity? What qualities do we want for this baby-to-be? Her willing audience participates as hundreds of her impromptu consultants.

In some ways, Paola’s pregnancy campaign is a metaphor for the electoral campaign upon us—and the play pulls no punches: No question, this is about the Orange Peril. Will these efforts result in victory, in the rebirth of TPP’s chances to provide a new destiny of hope and joy to the nation? The two stories run parallel throughout the two-act play. “Timely” only begins to describe this production.

Cubría’s play was originally commissioned by Florida’s Studio Theatre in collaboration with Portland, Oregon’s Milagro Theatre. It received a staged reading earlier this year at The Old Globe in San Diego. The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latiné Vote will have productions later this fall at Milagro Theatre, Houston Stages and TuYo Theatre in San Diego as part of a National New Play Network’s principle of a “rolling world premiere” so as not to grant the W.P. honorifics to any specific company. To be exact, this is not a touring show: Each production will feature a different cast, different director and staging.

Despite its specificity of the moment, I could still see a long-term future for this play as emblematic not just of a certain point in time, but of a major political party’s need to find ever more nuanced and effective avenues of reading and reaching its targeted populations.

According to TIME magazine, “Latinos are a complex demographic, but campaigns and political pundits continue to treat a group of nearly 61 million people as a monolith. Latinos in the U.S. come from all parts of Latin America, Central America and Mexico. Some Latinos have lived in the U.S. for generations. There’s a variety of Spanish dialects, languages, foods and traditions. It should come as no surprise that there are also differences in political ideology.”

HLLLL goes to some lengths to make such fine discernments. Among the TPP team, Rebecca Feldman (Laura Schein) is Jewish and speaks Spanish actually much more fluently than she is caricatured. Bernard Robinson (Max Lawrence), the only Black member of the group, does not know Spanish, and is sensitive to his being almost a “spy” in whatever environment he finds himself in. Nicola Ramirez (Emily Jerez), blonde, has a Cuban father but does not speak Spanish at all. Is she really Latina? In school they called her “whitina.” Kaj (pron. Codge) Lutken (Steven C. Fisher) is the product of trailer park culture who has made a success of himself—perhaps one might think of him as the mirror image of JD Vance, someone who started off modestly in life and instead of turning on the common folk decided to throw in his lot for the betterment of the general populace. Roland Ruiz plays a variety of characters—Paolo’s doctor, for one, and a host of variously (a)typical Latino characters being interviewed by the team. Additional cast members are Atlas Alma, Blaire Battle, Michael DiNardo, and Timothy Willard.

Whereas past TPP polling of Latinos focused on racist assumptions about The Wall, deportation, drugs and other hot-button issues, Dr. Aguilar proposes to delve deeper into the Latin community’s fears and insecurities that TPP might more effectively address. In that regard, she is somewhat stymied by the team lead Kaj’s interruptions of her interviews with selected subjects. Her line of inquiry elicits nervousness about upsetting the team’s preconceptions of the HLLLL voter. One thing Dr. Aguilar asserts without challenge is the scorn every other Latin group reserves for Argentina, portrayed as the haughty, self-declared most European (read: white) country of Latin America. (I actually felt a little tug of sympathy for Argentina being piled up on that way—not that I’m crying for her—but I got the impression that the Latinx in the audience largely agreed with her.) After all, Latinos have their own prejudices—colorism, racism, class conflict, national origin, etc.

A good point is made about the reasons Latino immigrants have come to the U.S. They are political, economic, and emotional. One interviewee admits that as a child exile fleeing Castro’s Cuba, he and his baby sister were immediately offered papers, financial assistance, homes, as a way of enticing them away from communism to U.S. jobs and prosperity. But as he grew older he saw that his situation was the exception. Most immigrants had a far harder time getting here, establishing themselves, and feeling secure in their new land.

In short, no one gets away unscathed by Cubría’s satirical pen. They all have their Achilles heels. Audiences will guffaw to see some of their most cherished caricatures portrayed—and debunked—on stage. What I missed is more detail about how the approach to the HLLLL community actually improved during the campaign. Maybe the playwright did not want to provide  ammunition to The Other Party! And I think Cubría steered a wide curve around religion: The HLLLL community is heavily influenced by the right-wing, homophobic evangelical movement, which likely accounts for the perceived too-wide spread in the political numbers.

Bernardo Cubría is a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award-winning playwright (Crabs in a Bucket, The Play You Want, The Giant Void In My Soul) who also happens to be a Topanga resident. He and Theatricum associate artistic director Willow Geer co-direct the show. Xochitl Romero (Crabs in a Bucket at Echo Theater Company, Cost of Living at the Fountain, Mutual Philanthropy at Ensemble Studio Theatre) stars as Paola Aguilar. Will she be able to help TPP’s team better understand the varied HLLLL community enough to capture the election? Or out of frustration with the team’s dysfunctionality will she abandon the project in order to, stress-free, protect the other little project she aspires to see growing inside her?

Audiences are sure to have a grand old time with The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latiné Vote. I don’t believe anyone will come away with any greater surety about how this community should be named, but at least they will understand some of the reasoning behind the many strands of this complicated controversy.

The Theatricum creative team includes costume designer Lou Cranch, lighting designer Hayden Kirschbaum, and sound designer Grant Escandón. Beth Eslick is the wardrobe supervisor. The assistant director is Stella Ramirez and the production stage manager is Candice Segarra–Stroud, assisted by Chris Ordonez.

The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latiné Vote will run in rotation every weekend with four other plays: Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Wendy’s Peter Pan; and Tartuffe: Born Again.

For a complete schedule of performances, visit the Theatricum website. Pay What You Will ticket pricing is available for the performances on Mon., Sept. 16 and Thurs., Oct. 3 (available online one week prior to the performance, or cash only at the door). Prologues (pre-show discussions) are scheduled from 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Mon., Sept. 16; Thurs., Oct. 3; and Sat., Oct. 12.

The amphitheater is terraced into the hillside, so audience members are advised to dress casually (warmly for evenings) and bring cushions for bench seating. Patrons are welcome to arrive early to picnic in the ample gardens before a performance.

Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum is located at 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd. in Topanga, midway between Malibu and the San Fernando Valley.

For more information and to purchase tickets, call (310) 455-3723 or visit theatricum.com

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CONTRIBUTOR

Eric A. Gordon

Eric A. Gordon, People’s World Cultural Editor, wrote a biography of radical American composer Marc Blitzstein and co-authored composer Earl Robinson’s autobiography. He has received numerous awards for his People's World writing from the International Labor Communications Association. He has translated all nine books of fiction by Manuel Tiago (pseudonym for Álvaro Cunhal) from Portuguese, available from International Publishers NY.