‘Filthy Laundry’: Intersectional union organizing in California’s 1970s Central Valley

From left, Nneoma Sampson, Aubrey Shea, Carmelita Maldonado, Lane Wray

LOS ANGELES — Not many longtime community activists for labor and civil rights, and for basic democratic rights, and who analyze political trends as a volunteer journalist for People’s World, take the time to write for the stage. But this town’s unique organizer David Trujillo is one. We have appreciated two of his previous plays—Many May Not Return and Legacy of a Garage Band—and now he has a third on the boards.

In Filthy Laundry, through the steam and dust of an industrial laundry facility in Laton, California, a trio of unlikely allies—an older Latina, a middle-aged Black woman, and a white teen—unite against a cruel 50-ish boss whose only qualification is being the son of the company’s founder, as he attempts to exert absolute control over their jobs and lives.

Set in 1972, with echoes of the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon’s perfidy in the White House, updates on Angela Davis, and contemporary songs signaling over the radio waves, Filthy Laundry not only evokes its period but harkens back to the heady organizing days of the 1930s, and even up to the present day and the powerful wave of union organizing we’re now seeing all across the country (though interestingly, the great wave of farmworker organizing in California’s Central Valley does not get noticed—unless it escaped me). With an homage to Clifford Odets’ powerful proletarian drama of the 1930s Waiting for Lefty—who could possibly ever forget the ending scene where the audience itself joins the taxicab drivers demanding “Strike! Strike!”—Trujillo intends to show how far we have—or haven’t!—come. And how sorely we could lose our gains of the past if Project 2025’s Donald “You’re fired!” Trump ever steps foot in the White House again.

Laton sits 23 miles south-southeast of Fresno, far enough to be a rural, farming community—especially 50 years ago—but close enough that its businesses, and its residents, might serve Fresno’s metropolitan area. It’s not specified in the play, but the industrial facility cleaning “filthy” bed linen, towels and other laundry likely has hotels, hospitals and restaurants for its clients.

In the opening scene we meet Concha (Carmelita Maldonado), a longtime employee in the factory, typically bilingual in Spanish and English. She has her gripes about Charles, “El Jefe,” but averse to trouble, passively sees no way out. She is an eager gossip, and good friends with her coworker, an African-American woman, Mary (Nneoma Sampson, making her debut in Los Angeles theater), who speaks of her father having been blacklisted as a labor organizer. It’s not said (or I didn’t hear it) how she came to be living in Laton but presumably long enough that she doesn’t blink an eye listening to Concha’s Spanish and seemingly understanding every word. (That point might have been made more clearly.) Mary has a good understanding of the Black struggle in America, and mentions Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s last campaign for the striking Memphis garbage workers. All the while they are virtual machines themselves, folding and stacking large quantities of white sheets. The washing machines are elsewhere and we don’t see them, but if this is a commercial laundry, and the sheets are described as “filthy,” it might have been of interest for the playgoer to know, filthy with what? Blood, excrement, toxic chemicals, medical spills?

Charles (Lane Wray), heir to the plant, is almost a caricature of the modern mogul—domineering, insulting (no speaking Spanish on the job!), insensitive, punitive, exploitative, sexist, white supremacist, truly a monster of a boss and human being. He sends Concha away from her sorting work into the iron press department, which is a job really appropriate for a much younger, stronger worker (a man, she says). Predictably, she suffers a serious burn, which Charles will not have a doctor attend to but instead gives her a prescription painkiller and sends her back in. He has nary a single redeeming quality to him.

Meeting her at a bus stop, Charles lures a 17-year-old drug-addled woman vagrant, Diane, or D (Aubrey Shea) to his protection—the fourth in this four-character play. In exchange for housing (and sexual favors), this self-declared hippie “feminist” can earn some money working at his factory and being his eyes and ears for any talk of unionizing among the women employees.

As the town’s leading businessman, Charles touts certificates of merit from the Chamber of Commerce, and with his fellow town leaders he is scheming to cheaply buy out the neighborhood where Concha, Mary and many of the other workers reside to build a whole new urban housing development. More clarity on this might have been useful—who will live in these new homes in Laton? What will attract them there? Charles shows Diane a cardboard box full of cash that he’s ripped off from his workers (see: surplus value) and will be distributed to the right hands at City Hall. On top of which, Charles is mounting a cross burning à la Ku Klux Klan that he implores Diane to attend, and he’s affiliated with the Colonia Dignidad in Chile, a training camp for fascists in this era of Gen. August Pinochet’s impending overthrow of the Socialist  government of Salvador Allende. There’s a lot packed into this character, perhaps too much of a load to successfully incorporate into the drama.

Trujillo likes playing with language. For example, someone calls Charles a “culo” and he asks what that means. He’s told it means “a cool guy” and he goes away smiling!

Curiously, when she hears about the Colonia in Chile, Mary already knows about it, suggesting that this character is much more than what we see on the surface. She also knows all about Emma Tenayuca, legendary Latina union organizer. Perhaps she’s a union plant, well-informed about politics both national and international. Is she in the  union’s employ, sent to Laton to organize?

Shorthand: Evil boss, an eager union organizer, her lovable but wavering, uncertain friend, and a druggie pulled in several directions whose ultimate allegiances and fate are an end-of-the-last-act reveal.

From scene to scene, through a number of plot points (including Charles’ missing watch), the playwright unfolds the tension in the factory, the way lines are drawn, and the complexities of race, power dynamics, and the resilience of the human spirit within the workplace and the surrounding community. The spotlight, though, is always on Concha: Will she retreat into her conditioned submission, or will she risk all and join the union campaign? A direct line can be traced from Lysistrata to Molière to Beaumarchais to Ibsen, to Brecht to Odets, to Hansberry to Arthur Miller to David Trujillo, all engaging in forms, simplistic to erudite, of agit-prop—theater with strong social commentary.

Filthy Laundry is brought to the stage by Community Professionals, the brains behind Commune Theatre led by a passionate Latino family including the playwright. “We’re all about breaking the rules and stirring things up in the best way possible. Through our shows, we celebrate our culture, empower our community, and create an inclusive space where everyone feels at home.”

The performers in the roles of Charles and Mary are union actors from Actors Equity.

The play has three more performances, Fri., Sept. 6 and Sat., Sept. 7 at 8 pm, and Sun., Sept. 8 at 2 pm. The venue is The Cat’s Crawl, a women-owned bohemian theatre, at 660 Heliotrope Dr., Los Angeles, just south of Melrose Ave., Los Angeles 90004. For ticket information, go to the company website here.

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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.