A West Coast Premiere with Truth, Perspective, and Futuristic Uncertainty
Chalk Circle Collective has been around for two years and three productions. Winning the Craig Noel Award this year for Outstanding Achievement by a Small Theatre, talk about The Little Engine that Could coming full throttle for their only yearly production. From their debut with The Turn of the Screw, to Constellations, both two-handers, to 2025 with the West Coast premiere of chris oscar peña’s (yes, all lowercase) THE STRANGERS (yup, all uppercase) with a cast of ten and performances at Cygnet’s former home, The Old Town Theatre.
Each production for this company is such an event that it might be all we can handle for now. And opening night was eventful for sure, with some technical difficulties and the curtain delayed by almost 40 minutes, which, in retrospect and after seeing the performance, I get why, as Sammy Webster’s lighting design is an essential, alive part of the frame with contrasts, flickers, and more that have to be witnessed.
The plot starts with eight actors coming to the stage and greeting the audience with a heads-up that the show will be a sort of remixed/reimagined Our Town by Thornton Wilder.
Cris (Steven Lone) comes back home to star in a local production of Our Town and is picked up by stage member Dave (Jake Bradford). The two hit it off, and Cris shares his story: born in the U.S with a Honduran mother (the playwright’s parents are Honduran), he is passing because of his light skin, and his brother is “darker” so eventhough their parents gave them a good life, the brother is always looking for himself and where to belong while Cris is looking for a place to call home and what it means. Dave’s sister Emily (Kimberly Weinberger) also works in the play, and she is in a relationship with Pearl (Michael Amira Temple). The story then follows a series of vignettes, each with a different character at its center. Lauren King Thompson plays various roles, but there is one, interpreting a homeless woman, where both her performance and peña’s words are it. The playwright totally nailed an unseen or under-discussed perspective from the unhoused on how they see the rest of the people. It was eye-opening and honest.
Michael Amira Temple in the first act delivered a chilling Pearl with Steven Leffue’s perfectly timed, loud (in a good way), and vivid sound design that matched Nicholas Ponting’s churrigueresque set design with freeway signs, a Betacam camera (what?), chairs, stairs, and miscellaneous that gave a futuristic, hollow (also in a good way) feel. Temple in the second act continued delivering, but now through a crossing guard. I do not want to give it away, but it is essential to mention these perspectives chris oscar peña interweaves within what is happening. There is heroism with the crossing guard, but there is also gender violence. Brief, but there. The colorism/passing between Cris and his brother, something super latent in Latin American cultures, both in their countries and exacerbated in the U.S., and yes, this search for identity that comes from a westernized propaganda when immigrants built this country (but that is for another day).
Steven Lone has such intention when portraying a role, and Cris was no exception, as his story is an anchor for the play and develops in parallel to the vignettes.
I had to do a double-take with Jake Bradford, as he looks so much like his brother Drew, who we saw in Follies last… Jake handles timing and breath with precision while imprinting the feeling needed for that moment, where, in the case of his character Dave, rooting becomes questionable.
There is another scenario with Kimberly Weinberger, Lauren King Thompson, and Kelsey Venter as schoolgirls warming up for a sports match while shallowly talking about reverse racism. –I cackled—another slam dunk from the playwright and these three who morphed accordingly in each scene. King was sassy, Venter had the balance, and Weinberger brought the laughs and the Valley flair.
Coleman Ray Clark’s direction has these vignettes flow and manage the rhythm and style of the characters, from soft-spoken to passionate and vocal. At the same time, each actor shifts and morphs with histrionic grace, also guided by the effects of Chad Ryan’s technical direction and Alex Bellafaire’s supervision. Javier David, in his Chalk Circle debut, is charming and intense, using the whole space to project. Michael DiRoma, in his stage debut, now in front of an audience, handles different emotions that communicate directly to the audience while maintaining the momentum, because the keyword with this play is momentum—youth actors Pepe Aparicio and Ellis Quesada come in with brief participation that rounds out with great scenic chemistry. I loved seeing these baby actors do their thing and do it well onstage. Jemima Dutra’s costume design totally meshed with the vibe of each frame; the costumes in this last scene were the pinnacle.
The feeling of the play as a whole is that peña has a lot to say about topics like love, betrayal, racism, identity, belonging, climate change, and he grouped them all into an almost three-hour piece. I was following along, but then I got lost because there is a twist that is staged correctly (with a little too much fog for my taste), but it left me questioning.
Maybe that was the intention…Go and figure it out for yourself.
THE STRANGERS is currently playing until November 30.
Fabricio Apuy Novella is the Stage Manager with Madison Mercado as the Assistant Stage Manager.
