In “Young Audiences,” a fierce and whip-smart black comedy that made its world premiere Friday at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista, a fed-up Latina playwright takes revenge on America’s white theater establishment, which she believes pays lip service to diversity only to use artists of color for getting DEI-related grants, donations and drama camp sign-ups.
Written with a rapier wit by Latina San Diego playwright Mabelle Reynoso, “Young Audiences” is the ninth new play OnStage Artistic Director James P. Darvas has developed and staged over the past four years through the company’s page-to-stage program. I’ve seen many of these new works by local playwrights, and the satiric “Young Audiences” is one of the smartest and best-directed.
The fiery and free-spirited Denise Lopez stars in the play as Lizzie, an overworked and underpaid 20something Mexican-American playwright, whose principal job at 50-year-old Pure Wonder and Imagination theater for young audiences is recruiting “brown kids” for its money-making children’s plays like “Froggy’s First Fiesta.”
But when Lizzie discovers the board of PWI (yes, that’s also an acronym for predominantly white institution) has canceled her scheduled play about Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz — the brilliant writer, composer and protofeminist nun in 17th-century Mexico City — she goes rogue (think Walter White from “Breaking Bad” meets Marty Byrde from “Ozark”).
Holly Stephenson, Denise Lopez, in the background, and Joe Vitti in OnStage Playhouse’s production of Mabelle Reynoso’s “Young Audiences.” (Salomon Maya)
Reynoso’s deep experience in playwrighting and the world of theater comes through authentically in the play with dark humor and stark truths.
Running a theater in “Young Audiences” means groveling for donations from helicopter parents who demand starring roles for their untalented kids in exchange for dollars, long hours with low pay, cleaning toilets when needed and staging mostly pared-down plays by what Lizzie describes a “dead white men.”
Some of the script’s funniest moments are PWI’s youth-friendly and diversity-minded Shakespeare adaptations, like “Hamlet Jr. The Musical” and “Romeo and Juliet” set in the Mexican Revolution with Pancho Villa.
But one challenge with “Young Audiences” is that Lizzie’s understandable fury at the system starts out in the first scene dialed up to level 10 on the volcanic rage scale, and it pretty much stays there for the rest of the two-hour, two-act play. I felt emotionally exhausted by all the screaming and expletives well before the play’s twist-filled ending.
Holly Stephenson has a wacky touch of the overdramatic Moira Rose (from “Schitt’s Creek”) as Terry, the burned-out, manipulative and insensitive PWI theater director. Angel Guillermo is gentle but dangerous as Octavio, an illegal goods importer and theater parent with cash to spare. Joseph Vitti has a hilarious comic turn as David, a gay PWI board member angling for special privileges for his daughter. Max Bergstrand plays clueless well as Lizzie’s “safe” white boyfriend Cameron. And Rhae Ferrer is mostly heard, not seen, as PWI’s unpaid, all-knowing intern in the tech booth.
Scenic designer Patrick Mason created the youth theater auditorium setting, Aria Proctor designed lighting and Brad Dubois designed costumes.
“Young Audiences” is a meta play that will resonate with theater workers whose passion for their craft often gets lost in the struggle to survive. It’s also a play about resilience. The theatrical art form has been written off as dead repeatedly over the past 2,000 years, yet it survives by always reflecting the best, and unfortunately the worst, of humanity.
‘Young Audiences’
When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. Through Dec. 7
Where: OnStage Playhouse, 291 Third Ave., Chula Vista
Tickets: $15-$25
Phone: 619-422-7787
Online: onstageplayhouse.org