The match between award-winning California playwright Luis Alfaro and the talented crew in San Francisco’s Magic Theatre/Campo Santo partnership is heaven-sent.
Luckily for us, the Alfaro-Magic connection—following Alfaro’s world premiere “The Travelers” on the Magic stage in 2023 and “Oedipus El Rey,” his re-imagining of the Oedipus myth, in 2010—continues.
In “Aztlán,” his new premiere onstage through July 13, the imaginative, compassionate Alfaro conjures up a world in which mythology and contemporary reality, with all its inherent injustices, coalesce in thrillingly larger-than-life ways.
“Aztlán” (a name referring to the homeland of the Aztecs) begins when a malevolent underworld god (Magic artistic director Sean San José), in a ritual dance, seems prepared to kill our hero, the parolee Aztlán (Daniel Duque-Estrada). The god scampers away but will return in the tightly plotted drama in which every character is essential.
Aztlán, with backpack and ankle monitor, is on a quest to reunite with his fractious family in Delano and especially with his older brother whom he loved but whom he feels he betrayed. In the meantime, Aztlán must contend with his quirky parole officer (an impish, unpredictable Ogie Zulueta), who might himself be the incarnation of a god: “You used to be a king and now you’re just a Mexican,” says the P.O. “Think about that and then let’s figure out how you’re going to reclaim yourself.”
By the end of the short (80-minute) play—which is cohesive, at times wonderfully comic and relentlessly intense — we know what that plan is.
Aztlán is a flawed hero (confused, gullible and brave), and his journey in the drought-stricken Central Valley is fraught with danger, from his own unhappy family in Delano to the prison system, to the plight of the Valley’s workers and tricksters he meets along the way (played by Juan Amador in two guises).
The prescient parole officer tells Aztlán, “There are gods and there are people. Decide which you want to be.”
The action races along, pausing only now and then for monologues, and that’s where the actors (who include Gabriela Guadalupe in several roles) and Kinan Valdez’s bold, full-bodied direction really shine. (Valdez is a member of the esteemed El Teatro Campesino).
Our hero’s father (played with beautiful simplicity by Amador), about to die, tells his entire life story without one wasted word; and the ever-astonishing Catherine Castellanos, as a 104-year-old Mexican woman (and, later, as Aztlán’s louche, resentful mother), is riveting, her every syllable, every gesture, every movement clear, defined and truthful.
Tanya Orellana’s set includes an altar for the gods upstage center and, above that, video projections representing Aztlán’s journey. But as with costumer David Arevalo’s feathered headdresses and wings for the gods and Alejandro Acosta’s dramatic lighting, the focus is always on the actors, and on Alfaro’s mesmerizing story, and that’s as it should be.
“Aztlán” continues through July 13 at the Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason, 2 Marina Blvd., San Francisco. Tickets are $35-$75 at magictheatre.org.
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