Theatre in Review: My Broken Language (Signature Theatre)

	Yani Marin, Marilyn Torres. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

My Broken Language is so front-loaded with gorgeous writing that it takes some time to realize its very real limitations. Subtitled "a theatre jawn" -- Pennsylvania slang for "a thing, place, person, or event that one need not or cannot give a specific name to" -- it is in fact a straightforward collection of sketches taken from Quiara Alegría Hudes' memoir of the same name. And when it comes to writing richly descriptive prose, the author is hard to beat.

The piece is a tribute -- a memorial, really -- to the tribe of New Jersey and Philadelphia Latinas who filled her childhood. As she notes, "Cousinhood in my big-ass family was a swim-with-the-sharks wonderland," and she supplies plenty of evidence to back up that assertion. It's a cultural cross-hatch ranging from Wheel of Fortune marathons to Santeria ceremonies, presided over by women who "spoke Spanish like Greg Louganis dove -- twisting, flipping, explosive -- and laughed with the magnitude of a mushroom cloud."

Describing a trip to Six Flags with a gaggle of older relatives, she notes, "We piled in a double-wide hooptie with four different-size tires and zero operational seatbelts, soda cans clattering in the trunk." At a wedding, eying the bride and groom, she notes, "Afterwards, one big sloppy kiss later, they ran outside to the North Philly curb, church bells a-ruckus, and dove giddily into an honest-to-God limousine. It had the whiff of importance, which I mistook for permanence." During a hair-dying session, she discovers that one cousin, a high school graduate, is illiterate, which cues a revelation: "In my magnet school, commas in e. e. cummings poems were debated. In her zoned school, invisibility was lauded as [a] life skill. My loudmouthed cousin shrank herself to a crumb and the school rewarded her compliance with the prize of a diploma." Writing as fresh and vivid as that is cause for celebration in any circumstance.

That last sequence, however, provides a clue to the weakness that seriously undermines the entire enterprise. After an uproarious introduction, we are told that, within a few years, many of her most beloved kinfolk were felled by drug addiction or AIDS. Meanwhile, Hudes, in love with literature and art -- she offers stirring tributes to Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison and meditates on her disturbed fascination with Marcel Duchamp -- progresses through college and graduate school, launching a career as a writer. These facts are noted, not illuminated: What was so different about the author's life that she succeeded so brilliantly even as the others rushed to tragic ends? The question is never seriously considered.

And, for all the flash and color of Hudes' writing -- a Frank Stella painting described as "a geometric splat," a cousin with a "C-section scar thick as a thumb, bisecting her abdomen from pubes up to navel," the stitches "giving the appearance of caterpillar feet" -- none of the women recalled so vividly ever acquires anything like a character. They remain forever at a remove, appealing subjects for the author's camera eye. And because each member of the company steps in at different times to deliver Hudes' narration, My Broken Language ultimately takes on a curiously disembodied feel. It's prose masquerading as theatre -- lively, gripping, and unsatisfying all at once.

This becomes glaringly clear in the climactic sequence, in which Hudes struggles to complete her graduate thesis project at Brown, an autobiographical drama that draws on these memories. We are told she has a breakthrough, the piece is a success, and even her mother, who doesn't love being represented onstage, gingerly approves of it. But what is the play about? What does she have to say about her relatives and the culture that produced them? The script does nothing to dispel my long-held notion that one of the least interesting things in the world is writers writing about their problems writing.

By then, it is clear that My Broken Language is really about Hudes' intellectual education -- how education set her mind on fire, igniting her literary/theatrical career. Many autobiographical shows -- Gabriel Byrne's Walking with Ghosts comes to mind -- tell similar coming-of-age stories, but Byrne draws such vivid portraits of his parents and other influential adults that we can practically see them. No one in the extended family in My Broken Language ever acquires a distinctive profile, let alone an inner life.

Hudes, who also directed, has assembled a vibrant cast of five, led by the great Daphne Rubin-Vega and featuring the striking Samora la Perdida. (The others are Zabryna Guevara, Yani Marin, and Marilyn Torres.) The author's staging, complemented by the dynamic choreography of Ebony Williams (who really knows how to put on a case of spirit possession), is generally capable. Exceptions include a silly, overelaborate tribute to her abuela's knack for cooking rice and a sequence featuring the gag use of overhead projectors. Arnulfo Maldonado's green titled set, filled with bathtubs and featuring plenty of greenery in the background, is certainly striking, although I hadn't the faintest idea what I was looking at - a spa? A bathhouse? Dede Ayite's collection of casual wear suits the cast members. Jen Schriever's lighting and Leah Gelpe's sound design are both solid. Ariacne Trujillo-Durand provides lovely piano accompaniment.

Still, this is a frustrating experience, notably attention-getting at first before gradually running low on interest. There's every reason to believe that behind these women are fascinating stories -- all of which are likely far more gripping than the author's grad-school adventures. Watching My Broken Language is rather like visiting a portrait gallery filled with frames that are beautifully rendered but still waiting for the art to fill them. --David Barbour